


The Shadow Directive

by N1ghtshade



Series: The Sounds of Silence [1]
Category: Hawkeye (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Action/Adventure, Complete, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Deaf Clint Barton, Eventual Romance, F/M, Sign Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 16:10:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 40,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13251822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/N1ghtshade/pseuds/N1ghtshade
Summary: Henley McBride, a high-risk situation sign language interpreter, finds her job becoming a whole new level of crazy when she's hired by S.H.I.E.L.D. as a mission interpreter for the recently-deafened Clint Barton. COMPLETED





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For purposes of clarity, here are some notes on my story.
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters except my OC Henley. If I did, you can bet Clint's deafness would be in the movies!
> 
> All signed communication will be 'glossed', that is, translated as close to the original intent of the signs as possible. Anything that is intended to be read as being signed will be in bold font.
> 
> I will have footnotes at the bottom of my chapters to explain any references to Deaf Culture or to a signing term.
> 
> The way I write Clint is a combination of the MCU version and Matt Fraction's comics, although being familiar with the comics is not necessary to understand the story, I will throw in a lot of detail from them. If you haven't read them, I'd encourage you too, they're really good and one of the few comics I enjoy reading repeatedly. I really wish the movie writers would use the comic canon Deaf storyline; it's one of the few things I don't like about the way Clint is in the movies.
> 
> Okay, enough talk, on to the story!

The Interpreter

File ARC-2700-98-Recruitment Consideration

Name: Henley Willow McBride

Occupation: High-risk situation ASL interpreter

Age: 28

Place of Residence: 1060 Chambers St. Portland, Oregon

Recommended By: Coulson, Phillip J.

Recommended Position: Full-time interpreter assigned to operative agent

Assigned Agent: Clinton Francis Barton-codename Hawkeye

Reason for Consideration: Certified interpreter, experience with high-tension and high-risk situations, formerly worked as an on-call freelance interpreter for FBI, CIA, and police agencies. Calm under fire, above-average self-defense skills. Above-average intelligence. Would accompany Agent Barton on all missions as a failsafe in case of hearing aid failure. Considered for recruitment under S.H.I.E.L.D. Protocol 5097-Shadow Directive.

Codename: Nightshade

###

**Put down the gun, and both of our mornings will be a lot less stressful. I can ask them for the money, but you need to give me a sign of trust here.**

When I got involved in sign language interpreting, it was basically because I wanted to be somebody's hero. That mental vision didn't really see the me ten years, a lot of classes, and an insanely hard certification test later, standing on the sidewalk outside the plate-glass window of an insurance agency, trying to defuse a hostage situation.

This is not going ideally, on the spectrum of calls I've had this rates about a seven. Not as easy as the domestic dispute callout that turned out to be merely the noise of a deaf couple cleaning their garage out and unable to hear the racket they were causing, but a thousand times better than the deaf kid who was in the wrong place at the wrong time during a robbery, and didn't stop when the police yelled at him to put his hands up. I was too late for that one, and it still haunts me.

Today is not great. It's nine a.m., I was on a late call last night that had me out until three talking down a potential suicide, and I haven't had my coffee yet.

The man slips his gun back into his coat pocket and starts to sign to me, and I can feel the movement of the sharpshooters waiting for a chance to end this now. But I know they are waiting on my signal; I've got enough of a reputation with law enforcement now that they trust my judgment when I feel that I can talk someone down without the situation escalating.

**Ok. But you have to promise me …**

He doesn't get any father than that before the resident idiot hero of the day tries to take advantage of the man's distraction and the more vulnerable position of the gun, and attempt to disarm him.

It's a dismal failure. The deaf man, Joey Maxon I found out from the police file I had to speed read on my way, is former military. As a matter of fact, he lost his hearing in a deployment when an IED went off too close to his position. His years of training and the swift reflexes of a man used to fighting for his life have the would-be hero on the ground in moments, and now the gun is out again and we are back where we started.

I resist the urge to facepalm and continue to sign.

**Joey, I know you're upset. I know about your daughter's cancer and I know that this company stopped paying her bills. But this is not the way to help her, ok? Her dad is strong, I know it, and she is too. You made it through three deployments and you've learned to cope with being deaf. I bet that little girl's got your determination. But she needs her daddy with her to help her fight, and you can't help her if you're in jail. So please put the gun down and let us help.**

Slowly but steadily, Mr. Maxon lowers his gun. He's looking me in the eyes the whole time, and I can see that I finally got through. It's an odd thing, the look deaf people can get when they realize all I want to do is be there for them. That's why I do this job. Not for the news stories, not for the money. For the people.

I call myself a 'high-risk situation interpreter'. It's a pretty unique job description; as a matter of fact, I might go so far as to quote Sherlock and say I invented the position myself. I work with a variety of law enforcement and government agencies in situations where a perpetrator, a victim, or a potential suicide risk is deaf.

"Another impressive success to add to your resume, McBride," the police lieutenant says as several men escort Mr. Maxon out of the insurance offices.

"I don't feel like it was. I wish we had gotten to him sooner. He's still going to be facing a sentence and jail time for this."

"But you got everyone out alive."

"This time. But every time I see this kind of thing happen, I wonder if we could have prevented it." I stand up from my makeshift perch on the bumper of one of the patrol cars. "Pleasure working with you, lieutenant, and your team. Guess you see a little too much of this in Portland?"

"Sadly, my men do have a lot of experience. But having good people like you makes their job a lot less stressful."

"I'd say I hope to work with you again, but given my line of work…"

"Yes. I'd prefer not to have to call again, but if I do I know where to find you. Good luck, McBride."

I need coffee. I need a lot of coffee. I climb into my car and let out the breath I was holding when my little cranky Buick actually turns over. I pull out of the parking space and drive aimlessly until I find a place that looks promising, a little corner café with a brown awning and lots of people at wrought-iron tables outside.

I walk inside and wait behind a stream of chattery housewives, hipster college students, and staid businessmen until the pink-haired girl behind the counter finally gets to me. I smile at the sight of an 'ILY' necklace she's wearing, and decide to play a hunch.

I order my usual, a black coffee with just a little hazelnut flavor, in ASL and the barista's grin is totally worth it as she signs back.

**I read about someone doing this at a Starbucks and it sounded awesome so I thought I'd learn sign language too. You're my first signing customer.**

**Your signing is really good. I'm a professional interpreter, and I was impressed. You know, you might want to ask your manager if they'd consider hosting a Deaf Social* event at this café. Those are really cool, and you could meet a lot of Deaf people to practice with.**

**That sounds awesome!** The girl's still grinning when she hands me my drink.

I start to walk out the door when my path is blocked by one of the businessmen. He's holding a briefcase, but when he shifts I see the handle of a gun in a shoulder holster. I feel like banging my head against a wall.

 _I cannot deal with another hostage situation this morning. Why? Universe, do you hate me?_ I'm so wrapped up in my dilemma that I almost throw my coffee at him when he speaks.

"Ms. McBride? I'm Agent Phil Coulson with S.H.I.E.L.D. I'd like to talk to you about a job."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Deaf Social is the term for gatherings Deaf people hold to meet and converse in their own language. These events are often held at cafes, restaurants, and other public places, or at a Deaf person's home, and they can last hours since Deaf people rarely get a chance to sign outside of their own community and take advantage of the opportunity to use their language for as long as they can. These events are good places for ASL students to attend as well, for practice and to meet new Deaf friends.
> 
> Any good? Any comments or critiques? Thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

By the time Agent Coulson has shown me his badge and confirmed his identity, I've gone from self-preservation mode to preparing-to-be-annoyed-by-bureaucratic-schmucks mode. Sadly, that's a pretty frequent default option when my day to day work involves dealing with the politics and inter-office power struggles of government agencies and law enforcement.

Coulson at first seems like another one of those nameless, faceless cogs that seem to exist merely to fill space and type files in cubicles, but the more I study him as we struggle to find seating in the crowded outdoor area of the café, I notice subtle things that aren't typical to an office worker, not even someone from one of these super-secret alphabet soup agencies.

Coulson is very polite and businesslike, but he also looks away from me often, glancing across the street and at the reflections in plate-glass windows. He ignores an open table close to the street in favor of one that backs up against a wall and is half-buried by an overgrown ornamental shrub. He pushes his own chair out from the table slightly so there's nothing in between his hand and his gun holster. All these are traits I don't see in office suits, but they're pretty much trademark for the military veterans, police officers, and SWAT teams I've worked with. This man is some kind of field agent, I'm sure. But he hides it pretty well. So what does he want with me?

I'm so preoccupied with studying him that I tip my coffee cup too much and get a noseful of scalding coffee. I sneeze, splutter, and slam the cup down, noticing too late that coffee has managed to spill all down the front of my charcoal-grey work blouse. _Great. Just great. Look like an idiot in front of a potential employer. Nice work, Henley._

"Ms. McBride, it's come to our attention that you have a highly specific skill set, and one that S.H.I.E.L.D. would be interested in employing," Coulson says, seemingly unperturbed by my little accident. I stop mopping up spilled coffee with a pile of the table napkins and look back up to meet his steely-blue gaze.

"Well, most agencies who want to hire me just call my office number, you know. I do have it listed on my website. Even the FBI doesn't accost me in a coffeeshop when they ask for my assistance."

"S.H.I.E.L.D. is not the FBI, Ms. McBride. And we don't plan on hiring you with your usual terms."

"Oh, that's rich, if they think they can just name their list of demands and I'll jump to fulfill them all because I won't be able to pass up an offer to work for this oh-so-amazing S.H.I.E.L.D. I've done my share of hostage negotiation, and I don't give in to demands. If you'd bothered to read up on me, I'm sure you'd have noticed that. Sorry, but I really do work on my terms." I stand up to leave. "I have my reasons." He doesn't need to know about Charleston. About the night I swore, to myself and the ghost that was following me, that I would never let anyone else make the calls for me.

"This would be a well-paid and permanent position." Coulson sounds like he knows he's lost me but has to go through the formalities at least. But what he says makes me turn around, not with any plan to accept, but just to set things straight.

"I don't think you understand my position, Agent Coulson. My job is a very unusual one. It's a nearly non-existent position and I'm in high demand by a large number of government and law enforcement agencies. I need to be available for response whenever any of them need me; I've refused several times to go under contract to any specific one and tie myself down."

"I don't think _you_ understand, Ms. McBride. We're not contracting you to the division, we're asking you to be a personal interpreter, 24/7, for one agent."

"I don't do personal." I'm walking away again.

"Think it over." There's a soft rustle, and when I instinctively turn around to see what it was, Coulson is gone. But a messenger bag I never saw him carry in is lying on the table, with a thick manila file half-spilling out. I glance around, but the agent is nowhere in sight.

Well, I can't just leave a classified file out here in the open where anyone could get their hands on it. I internally berate myself for my own conscience as I pick up the file and walk away. Coulson is good. He knew I wouldn't be able to walk away. That's why he abandoned the file instead of handing it to me in person. He took quite a gamble doing it, too. _Who could be that important to him, to take such a risk?_

I throw the satchel on the passenger seat of my car and climb in. The file continues to draw me like a magnet, and when I look down at it again I see that a second item has fallen out. A single black arrow.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as a clarifier, this story is set about five years before the events of Avengers, although it will be in the same general universe, and S.H.I.E.L.D. is still relatively unknown to the general public. However, I'm going to be characterizing Clint more based on the comics than the movies, since, especially in the first Avengers film, we really don't know anything much about Clint's story.

I must break at least five speed limits on my way back to my apartment, and the city traffic snarls, which don't usually grate my nerves too much unless I'm on my way to a job, are giving me headaches.

The arrow is still visible on the seat, daring me to see what kind of unconventional job I'm being asked to take. I have no idea what it means, that an antiquated weapon (although admittedly the design looks quite sleek and modern) is shoved into the bag along with my would-be client's dossier.

As soon as I find a parking space in the multilevel structure that is the only non street-side parking for my neighborhood within a three block area, I grab the satchel and walk as briskly as I can to the repurposed candle factory I call home.

My haste now is only partially due to eagerness to read the files. It's also a necessary safety precaution on the streets in my neighborhood, once evening comes and the fogs roll in. Portland is a beautiful place to live, even with the nearly constant rain and mist, but like any city, it comes with a few risks as well.

I reach my door in record time and I don't even bother to hang up my damp coat before I dump out the contents of the bag onto my kitchen counter. The arrow makes a metallic clatter and the thick manila file thumps down with a gravity and finality that seems slightly ominous.

Pinned to the outside of the file is a photograph of a man, about my age or a little older, with short, spiky blond hair and intense stormy-blue eyes. I study the picture for a minute, noting the seriousness that might be natural or possibly just the requirement for official personnel photos, and then open the packet.

A personal file is tucked in next, and when I try to pull it out, I misjudge the size of it and nearly rip the first page free. I had thought the stack would be only three or four pages, but this file alone is at least twenty pages thick. Of course, most of it is redacted; there's so much black ink it's a wonder there's any visible words at all, but I can read enough to get the idea.

Clinton Francis Barton, AKA Hawkeye, master marksman, sniper, and former assassin for hire. And, as of three months ago, deaf.

The more I read of his file, the more I understand why S.H.I.E.L.D. wants me, particularly, for this job. Clint is not so different from a lot of the people I've worked with in the past. Traumatic family life, probable PTSD, definite trust issues. Yep, my kind of person.

Clint, born to an Iowa farm family, was the victim of an abusive father, along with his mother, and, to a lesser extent, his brother Charles "Barney" Barton. His father managed to avoid any charges, however, even though the abuse was so severe that at one point Clint was temporarily deafened. According to the file, Barney taught Clint sign language at that time, and he had already learned extremely well before his hearing returned.

Barely a year later, both parents were killed and Clint and his brother, with no close living relatives, were sent to the Waverly Home for Boys, an orphanage close to the Bartons' hometown. A few months later, Barney discovered that Clint was again being abused by both older fellow residents and, worse, one of the Home's adult employees.

I cringe, knowing what isn't being said and wondering how I haven't encountered this man already in my day job. _How could anyone live through a hell like that and not end up either suicidal or a criminal? Then again, the file says he was an assassin, so maybe I'm not all wrong._ I swallow the bad taste in the back of my throat and go on reading, albeit more slowly. No matter how many times I hear stories like this, it never gets any better.

And this one actually gets worse. Barney planned three escapes, and after being caught and severely punished twice, they managed a clean getaway by stowing away in the caravan of a traveling circus, Carson's Carnival, that was in the town that night. When the boys were discovered at the unloading in the next town, one of the tent setup workers took them in and allowed them to help him with setup in exchange for staying in his trailer and eating with him.

Both Clint and Barney eventually found work with some of the circus's acts. Clint, training under a master marksman, Buck Chisholm or "Trickshot", quickly became a rising star in his own right as "The Amazing Hawkeye", whose weapon of choice was the bow and arrow. As much or more accurate with a bow as with a firearm, Clint was known for never missing a shot and also being able to make impossibly difficult shots with startling ease.

Barney, who also trained with Buck, but more closely with Jacques Duquesne, "Swordsman", was also a talented archer, but continued to be overshadowed by his brother. Jealous of Clint's success and potential, Barney began to spend more and more time with Duquesne, who was also bitter over a lack of recognition and nursing a grudge against the circus owners.

Barney and Duquesne began to embezzle money from the carnival, until one night when a show cancelled early from weather concerns and Clint returned to find Jacques and Barney with their stolen money. When he confronted them about it, Duquesne stabbed him in the chest and he and Barney fled, leaving Clint for dead.

Chisholm found Clint and stayed with him at the city hospital until Clint recovered, but Clint refused to rejoin Carson's. From there on out, the file is mostly black, although a few legible portions here and there are enough for me to make a mental picture of a man so lost and alone he has no concern if he lives or dies. The injuries he's sustained, at least the ones I'm aware of, should have been his death sentence five times over, but somehow, he's managed to survive.

And then Coulson's name pops up and I read more carefully again. Agent Coulson was part of a protection detail for a man Clint was hired to kill. Coulson stepped in front of the target at the last minute and saved the man's life. And somehow, with a life-threatening wound, also managed to convince a frightened, angry, and broken man that he could get a second chance.

Clint took it, and payed Coulson's favor forward three years later by defying a kill order on a Russian assassin Natalia "Black Widow" Romanova, recruiting her to the agency instead. She became his close friend and partner, and the two regularly had missions together. I read all I can about the way these two have managed to find such a working chemistry, and what I can find reads like a gripping spy novel. Unfortunately, all the best parts are gone, including an entirely blacked-out section with only a header reading "Operation Trojan Horse: Budapest".

Then I find the part that actually explains my involvement.

Clint apparently isn't satisfied with being a hero on the job; he brings his work home with him. As far as I can tell, he rather inadvertently became involved in a neighborhood struggle to keep his apartment building from being sold to a developer and leaving the residents stranded. Buying the building outright wasn't even enough to stop the Russian Mob family running the deal; a professional assassin was hired to conveniently get Clint out of the picture. Clint and his teenage protégé, Kate Bishop, managed to defeat the Russians and their hired killer, but in the course of it all, Clint was irretrievably deafened, losing at least eighty percent of his hearing.

Although S.H.I.E.L.D. and Stark Industries, who apparently recently began collaborating very closely, have been able to design very functional hearing aid, it isn't a one-hundred percent fix. That's where I come in.

The second pile of papers is a very detailed job description of my position, should I choose to accept. I would be Clint's "shadow", a backup set of ears in case of a hearing aid failure on a mission, which in Clint's line of work could be the difference between life and death. I would need to be with him almost twenty-four seven during missions, which would require me to be as physically fit and athletically skilled as Agent Barton, so that I could keep up. I would be required to learn "danger words" in at least fifteen different languages, so that if we were in a foreign country and someone began talking about "agents" or "bombs" or anything else that could threaten our safety, I would be able to alert Clint. I would basically be the ears of the operation, with the responsibility to asses every sound as a potential threat and react accordingly.

It strikes me that paying attention to all this, which I find overwhelming, is all second nature to Clint. How frustrating must it be to be so aware, so self-sufficient, and then suddenly forced to rely on a piece of technology or on another, les-trained, person? I've always known how challenging deafness is, but this, this is the first time it's sunk in so deeply. Knowing all the things this man has done, will he even be willing to accept my help, or will he simply shut down and never let me in? He has every right to, from the experiences of his past.

But I have to do something, or I know all too well what will happen. The realization hits me with a strike of clarity. Either I take this job now, or at some point in the future I get a call from someone, somewhere, asking me to deal with this man as a desperate criminal. I've seen this happen far too often with war veterans who have less messed up pasts. This agent is a train wreck waiting to happen, and I might be the only one who can stop it.

I pick up the black arrow and finger the length of it. This must be one of Barton's own weapons. I remember something my ASL teacher used to tell me on bad days, when i was sure I'd never be good enough to pass the tests and get my certifications.

"An arrow can only be shot by pulling it backward. So when life is dragging you back with difficulties, it means that it's going to launch you into something great."

There's a business card with a holographic eagle logo paper-clipped to the back of the folder. I pick it up and dial the number, and I'm rather pleasantly shocked when I don't get a secretary but rather the at least somewhat familiar voice of Agent Coulson. I don't waste words.

"Coulson, I read the file. I'll take the job. Where do we start?"


	4. Chapter 4

"You're asking me to agree to _what?"_

"Relax, signing that waiver is just a formality. It's never actually been used."

"Really? Because that's an awfully detailed description what forms of spontaneous combustion are insured under S.H.I.E.L.D.'s version of workers' comp."

The amount of paperwork one is required to fill out to work for S.H.I.E.L.D. is absolutely ridiculous. It's worse than applying for my RID* certification. Oddly, the least stressful part is the background checks, considering how many times I've had to be checked and re-checked because various government agencies just have to verify my credentials and history for themselves, even though I've been run through the system by at least ten others previously.

Then there's the medical history and the waiver for the required physical test, which makes me frown a little studying it. The medical treatment waiver, which I'm currently arguing with Coulson about, is even more ominous; but he insists it's mostly hypotheticals, so I sign it anyway. Not without with a last cursory glance at the paragraph on accepting experimental medical treatment in the event of potentially fatal injury. Hopefully I never have to find out what all that fine print means.

I can tell by the rapidity with which Coulson supplies all the required information to fill out the documents that he had oh-so-helpfully already included in the satchel that he both fully expected me to take the position and that he was depending on me to do so. From what I now know about his involvement in Agent Barton's life, the determination and riskiness of his actions earlier makes sense. He's basically the decent father Clint never had, and seeing the younger man struggling to do what he's been trained for, and probably growing more and more depressed, must be eating at him terribly.

As I'm picking up all the papers scattered across the counter, searching for an elusive blue sheet that Coulson says is an essential page of my overseas travel expense waiver form, something metallic chinks against my fruit bowl. I pick up the small item to discover that it's a flashdrive, black with the same stylistic eagle logo that was on Coulson's card.

Since I'm still on the phone with Coulson, feeling more and more like this is one of those remote computer repairs with the tech trying resignedly to talk me through a simple file cleanup and then exasperatedly just taking over the whole thing remotely, I decide to ask about the drive.

"What's the flashdrive for?"

"You'll see." Coulson says, and that's all the explanation I get before he launches back into his spiel on the importance of filling out every section on the Special Equipment Transfer and Requisition form, even though I have no personal weapons or "power aids" to bring with me, and I don't intend to carry any special gear other than the standard issue.

Three hours and five very frustrating hand cramps later, I'm fairly sure I have most of the required papers filled in. There's a lot of repeated information, and if I didn't know my home address and phone number before, I would have had it memorized by now. Coulson finally hangs up, and despite the fact that I feel ready to drop, that flashdrive is tempting me, sitting there on top of my pile of papers.

So I open my Mac and plug in the drive, with a moment of searing doubt that this is all a massive scam and this is some carrier for a virus that's going to steal my identity and passwords and crash my computer. But it simply boots up and I open the drive to find that it's a series of video files labeled only with dates.

I click on the first, dated June 27, 1990. It opens to a grainy home-video quality image that I am barely able to see at first. Finally it swims into focus as the main ring of a circus tent, where a man whose voice I can barely hear is standing at the center of a spotlight announcing the next act as the first solo performance of the young marksman prodigy, "The Amazing Hawkeye."

The figure emerging from the side of the tent isn't really what I expected. He's small and slender, still awkwardly not grown into himself, and I remember that he's only about thireen right now, still a child, practically. But the way he carries himself erect and strong, and the determined flash in his eyes as the camera catches his glance at the audience, is all one-hundred percent the Clint from the files I read.

I have to grin at the outfit he's wearing, a neon purple tunic. This is totally going in my mental file of potential blackmail material for when I get to know this man a little better. I mean, come on, he's a highly trained and incredibly skilled government sniper, I've got to have some leverage if he gives me a hard time.

When he starts shooting, though, I stop thinking about anything but _holy cats how is he even doing that this is crazy this is the guy I'm supposed to be following around what have I gotten myself into?_

The footage of more recent missions is even more intimidating. Although the videos have been carefully edited, I notice, to remove landmarks, street names, and identifiable people, I'm still able to get a good sense of Clint and his now-partner Natasha's fighting style. Some of the things they do make my stomach do flips-the extent of my acrobatic ability-even though I'm safely seated on my couch.

_They seriously expect me to follow Clint if he jumps across a fifteen-foot building gap? There's no way I'm going to make it over that. I mean, I guess if there's angry people chasing me who want to shoot me, it isn't going to matter too much how I die at that point, but still._

I continue watching the videos but pull up a blank document beside them to take notes. Mostly a tirade of "Note to self, find Youtube videos on self-taught parkour. Practice throwing kitchen knives so won't look like complete idiot during weapons training. Do flexibility exercises. Reconsider this entire job."

I'm not sure at what point I fell asleep, but when my alarm goes off at seven a.m. my computer keyboard has left a checkerboard on my face and when I restart there is a string of random "ljknnnnnomyklllllllllllppokl" at least three pages long.

There's also a text message on my phone that I somehow managed to miss the notification for. It's from the number I've saved to my contacts under the unassuming name of "Insurance Agent." Coulson's number.

The text is short and exactly what I would expect from an agent. "9:00 pm Pier 47 Bar Seattle. If acceptance reconsidered, please alert so proper redaction procedure can be initiated."

I have a sinking feeling that "proper redaction procedure" is going to involve some sort of memory wipe, and part of me wonders if this is an actual thing or if Coulson is trying to scare me into not backing out.

He needn't have worried. I type "I have not reconsidered." and nearly press send, and then a fit of somewhat contrary humor strikes and I erase the succinct and professional message in favor of "Mission Accepted." Hopefully Coulson has a sense of humor.

I pull out my go bag that I keep in case of longer-term short notice assignments and survey the contents. I wonder if the towel, extra clothes, hand sanitizer, scarf, umbrella, first aid kit, notebooks, and wintergreen mints will be the kind of supplies I'll need as interpreter for a field agent. Well, I can update my bag when I need to. I do throw in a pair of black yoga pants, a black tank top, and tennis shoes, as well as more clean clothes since there's no guarantee when I'll be able to come back and get the rest of my stuff, if ever.

I'm so jumpy and scared of being late that I start what should be a three hour trip at four p.m., and even with some traffic and construction delays I'm in Seattle by seven thirty. I kill time by stopping in at one of the police precincts where I'm on first name basis with the sergeant after a high-profile case involving a deaf cat burglar. He gives me directions to the bar, which wasn't even showing up on my phone's maps-suspicious anyone?-and at a quarter to nine I'm sitting at a table overlooking the ferry dock.

There's several other people at the bar, and I like to people-watch, so I choose a couple at a nearby table to study. The man looks a few years older than the woman, and his face has a few stress lines. The woman has dark hair in a ponytail and tear streaks on her face. _Messy breakup? Maybe I shouldn't stare._

And then the man stands up, wincing as if the motion causes some pain, and enfolds the woman in a hug, leaning down slightly to kiss her. Now I'm really not staring. Promise.

I don't see the man leave, but I do look up when a hand taps my shoulder. It's the woman, smiling a bit sadly.

"Waiting for someone?" She asks, studying my plain grey work suit as if that's somehow really the wrong thing to be wearing to a meeting here.

"Yes, actually."

"Good luck. And be careful. You never know what could happen." With that odd warning she's walking away. Then she turns around and before disappearing into the mist speaks one more time. "Don't lose yourself."

When I look back at where she stood, Phil is walking toward me. I stand up and shake his hand, but I can't resist asking him something.

"Did you see that woman?"

"Who? Julie?"

"You know her?"

"More or less. She was meeting someone, the less I know about it the better. This bar is a safe zone. Multiple agencies, CIA, S.H.I.E.L.D., more you don't have the clearance to know exist, they have agreements to use it because it's out of the way and has multiple exit points, no security cameras and no curious owner. The barkeep is former CIA black ops. So it's an ideal place for drops and secret meetings. Almost every city has one, and they have special ways to identify them. You'll learn all that in training."

"Shouldn't there be one of these places in Portland? Why didn't you pick me up there?" I'm not sure what the rationale is behind me coming all the way to Seattle.

"I was only in Portland for one day. For personal reasons." He doesn't elaborate, and I wonder what he's hiding; why he's taking such pains to make sure as few people as possible know he was in Portland. The thought sends a icy finger of uncertainty down my back. I decide not to tell him what Julie said to me. Maybe she was on to something. For now, I'll watch my own back until I'm sure of who to trust.

"There's our ride," Coulson says and stands up, pointing to a black Suburban pulling up in the parking lot. I grab my bag and follow him. The driver's door opens as we approach, and a woman in a black uniform steps out.

"You sure she's the one, Coulson?"

"Positive, May. Now let's get her to the base. She needs a good night's sleep before we throw her to the wolves. Or to the Hawk." He smiles at me a little, as if to reassure me he's joking.

"He's not kidding." _Is this Agent May a mind reader?_ "Barton doesn't know about any of this. About you, about what they're hiring you to do, anything. And he isn't going to be too happy to hear that S.H.I.E.L.D. hired an interpreter without even notifying him because he'll assume they think he can't do his job anymore. So you'd better be ready to be the bone in a dogfight."

 _Great. Wonderful. Coulson, why didn't you tell me this before I agreed? So I'm going into a blind meet with a guy who's probably going to hate the very rationale behind why I'm there, and who could kill me twenty different ways without breaking a sweat. Awesome. I'm so dead._ And the car door slams behind me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf. This organization provides training and certification tests for interpreters with the intent of assuring that the interpreters registered with them will be professional and highly qualified. Most positions for interpreters require or highly prefer an RID certified applicant.


	5. Chapter 5

_I'm going to die._

_Wait, why is that my first thought waking up? And where am I?_ Grey walls, plain cot bed with a white dresser and lamp next to it, no windows, fluorescent lights. _What have I done? Am I in jail? A really crappy hotel? Oh wait…_

Memories of the night before start chasing back. In the Suburban with agents May and Coulson, and the more detailed explanation of exactly what I've been hired into. Apparently S.H.I.E.L.D. has contingencies for everything, and there's one called the Shadow Directive, a program for hiring a civilian to assist an agent who has been injured in one way or another, to allow said agent to continue on missions. It's never been used before, though, according to Coulson. So I'm the guinea pig. _Fan-freaking-tastic._

And then there's the base itself, which we entered by May driving through a camouflaged door in a hillside where I thought we were going to crash straight into a bank of sandstone. I have no idea where in the world we are, although my best guess is the southwest states from the stony, dry landscape I caught glimpses of out the window. No wonder there's no windows. I'm underground. _Buried already. How convenient._

Okay, I really need to get some caffeine in my system and get these morbid things out of my brain. Problem? The door to my room is securely locked. They aren't taking any chances with me getting loose and wandering into places I shouldn't be, I guess. Maybe there's a kitchenette?

I wander across the room to a gap in the wall, but the only place it leads is a small bathroom, and when I catch a glimpse in the mirror I study my reflection critically.

I'm still wearing the grey suit I had on last night, minus the jacket which is hanging on the end of the bed, and aside from a few wrinkles in the skirt, it looks presentable. My hair is another story. I retrieve my hairbrush from my go bag and make the best of it, securing the wayward mousy strands into a ponytail. I'm suddenly glad that I rarely wear makeup because I'm sure I'd look like a fright right now if I did. As it is, I think I'm ready for the day.

A knock on the door outside causes me to toss the brush in the air with a jump. I wasn't expecting the sudden commotion. I grab my suit jacket and slip in on, stumble into my shoes, and when I open the door-unlocked this time-Coulson is standing outside holding a small packet.

"This is your ID with Level One clearance for door scans, a lanyard, a map of the complex, a day schedule, important phone numbers for medical and technical services, and your copies of paperwork. You should probably keep those someplace safe."

"Thanks." I take the packet and attach the lanyard to the photo ID badge. The picture is one from my website, the same one most agencies use on my identification.

"We don't use biometrics a lot here, not a super-high-level facility, but there will be other places where you'll need it. Your bioprint will be added to our system during the medical workups. It's the most cutting-edge technology in identification security now, and we're going to be upgrading most facilities, so better to do it now than later." _Yeah. And having my entire personal biology scanned on file in some government database isn't creepy at all._

"Are you going to RFID chip me too?"

Coulson looks a bit shocked. "No. we have much more sophisticated tracking systems. RFID was obsolete years ago. But we'll fit you with those only for missions. Tracking people all the time can be a bit…overwhelming for our data analysts."

I decide I don't want to ask any more questions.

"We're meeting Barton in fifteen minutes," Coulson says, consulting his watch. I look at mine at the same time, it's two in the afternoon! There's no concept of time in this fluorescent world, I imagined it was morning. When did we arrive last night? I can't remember.

Before I can start working myself into a panic, Coulson speaks again. "If you've already freshened up…"

"Yes, I'm ready." I follow him into the hallway, putting on the lanyard. Carrying an ID is second nature to me, but this one I keep picking up and staring at, wondering whether it's tracking me or not, or what exactly it can do.

Coulson leads me down several halls, past rooms of agents talking, working, and eating-that last one is hard to pass, especially when I smell coffee-and finally we stop in front of a pair of frosted-glass doors with the eagle logo prominently displayed. Coulson motions for me to swipe my ID, and I do so. Nothing happens.

"Try turning it around," he suggests, and I do. This time there's a green light and the doors slide open with a soft swish.

A man in black tactical gear stands up from his chair as we enter. After the videos from the flashdrive, I would recognize him in a heartbeat. Barton.

He's even more intimidating in person than in the video footage, and that's saying something. He isn't particularly tall, but he's well-built and muscular, with powerful arms from shooting. The kind of guy who I associate with SWAT teams, military, and in general the strong silent type. And there's no question how he got his code name; when he looks my way his sharp blue eyes seem to see right past my show of confidence to the tiny snowball of insecurity that's rapidly growing.

"She needs to go. Now. I know everything, Coulson, and I want her gone." His voice is deep, a bit rough, and, although carefully calmed, I can sense the anger and tension below the surface.

"Barton, she's staying until I explain this." _I don't want to stay. I want to get out of here and never come back._

"Oh, there's nothing to explain. Nat hacked your files days ago, when you started getting evasive and lying to me. I know about all of it, Phil. The Shadow Directive, Ms. McBride's job, Portland." At the last word, Coulson actually turns a shade redder. _What the heck is so darned important about Portland?_

"Barton, listen to me. Stark has done the best he can on those aids, but he can't guarantee they'll work. As a matter of fact, he told me himself that he's given them a twelve percent potential for failure."

"I've done just fine until now. Rio, Bankok, Lagos…" He stops and seems to reconsider the last one. "I didn't ask for her to be here. For the last time, Coulson, I don't want an interpreter, and I don't even need-"

I'm watching the conversation and simultaneously noticing a slender blonde female agent coming up on the pair, directly behind Clint. It's obvious that he didn't notice her, because his argument is cut short as she makes a nearly invisibly fast sweep with her leg that takes him straight to the floor.

"You were saying, Barton?" She asks with a cockeyed little smile. "I could never manage that when you could still hear me. Always used to tell me I was gonna get caught because I sounded like a herd of elephants coming down a hall in my tac boots."

"Did it have to be Bobbi?" Clint grumbles, dragging himself back to his feet stiffly and wincing a bit. That fall must have really hurt, or he's got some more recent injuries he's trying to hide. Maybe that's why he didn't sound so sure about Lagos.

"Would you have preferred Romanoff?" Coulson asks wryly. "Besides, she is a bit less stealthy, and it proved my point. Your hearing, even with those aids, is not sensitive enough."

The woman comes and sits down next to me. "Whatever he tries to say, he needs backup. And Coulson's eventually going to convince him of that. So here's a bit of advice. You watch out for yourself out there with him, and don't let him get under your skin. That's the worst mistake you can make." Her voice is sounding more bitter with each word.

"Looked like you two had some history."

"I'm his ex-wife, honey. Take it from me, that boy is bad news." So this is Barbara Morse. Mockingbird. Have to admit, I guess I breezed over that part of the file…

Coulson is still arguing. "Just give her a chance. Two missions. She'll be through Basic in six weeks, and I want you to do her training. And then I'll send you two out if it looks like you've got any kind of rapport, see what happens in some real field work."

"You're benching me for six weeks to train someone I never want to see again?"

"You're already out for four, after that debacle in Lagos. Which could have been prevented if you'd been able to hear that chopper…"

Clint cuts him off with an angry curse and some sign language that isn't part of the standard vocabulary. And then turns to me.

I know I look like a middle-schooler caught sneaking out a bedroom window, but the proximity of a backup in the form of Bobbi gives me a little confidence.

Clint, ignoring his ex-wife very pointedly, turns to me. "Listen. You come with me, I expect you to be able to keep up. You're gonna have to pass the field training tests, sure, but that isn't gonna cut it doing what I do. You gotta be able to run, jump, climb, and fight just like me and you need to stay with me at all times no matter what I do. Got it?" I nod wordlessly.

"Just to be very clear, I did not ask for you, and I do not want you around. You're just a glorified babysitter. So if anything happens to you out there, it isn't gonna break my heart. Watch your own back, 'cause I can't be watchin' it for you." With that, he walks away, and Bobbi gives me an unreadable look before exiting the room as well.

It occurs to me then, in a moment of random irony, that I never did get that coffee I needed.


	6. Chapter 6

The afternoon blows by in a whirlwind of interviews with a large assortment of random important-looking men in suits, and then a scarier guy with a black trench coat and an eye patch. He doesn't talk much, and I'm glad to have that one over, even if he does seem to approve of me.

My physical is over rapidly, with the blood work coming back so fast that it's in and finished before the doctor in charge is done asking my medical history. I guess that's what happens when you have dedicated, state-of-the-art labs. I don't want to think about the other possibility, or the fact that there was a small red mark on my arm like a mosquito bite when I woke up this morning that I hadn't really thought about until now. _I_ was _pretty out of it that first night, did they really take a blood sample while I was sleeping? How many ways can you say CREEPY?_

The bioscan is done with a machine that operates like a CAT scan, but is even noisier if that's possible. It takes less time thank goodness, but I still feel incredibly shaky and drained when it's over. And a little less comfortable in my own skin now that my entire personal profile on file.

I find my way to the cafeteria following Coulson's map, and manage to grab dinner-too late for that coffee now-before the day's events catch up with me and I practically sleepwalk back to my room.

When my I-Phone's alarm, a ringtone I just set to the military reveille, goes off, I drag myself out of bed, change into my workout clothes and after braiding my hair messily,-which looks really attractive in internet photos but just scruffy and stupid in real life-I grab my water bottle from my go-bag's emergency food stash and bolt to the cafeteria. With a half-hour to eat, I down a bagel with cream cheese and jam in record time, and a cup of coffee along with a glass of water-I'm not going to a workout on just coffee, I'll dehydrate so fast it won't be funny.

After eating I have eight minutes to get to the gym, on the other side of the complex. _Great. Workout starts now._ I take off through the halls at the fastest speed I decide is safe, dodging probation-period junior agents carrying top-heavy file boxes, serious people in suits poking at I-Pads, and tired agents in tac gear straggling toward the dining hall or medical, whichever seems more urgent to them at the time.

I slide to a stop in front of the training room with two minutes to spare. Not bad. But I've probably exhausted my running capabilities for the day. I push open the doors and enter hallway, with doors to either side labeled men's and women's locker rooms.

Clint is leaning against the wall, apparently oblivious to the flow of agents coming into or leaving the gym. He's not wearing athletic clothes but more a version of his field gear: black cargo pants, military-style boots, and a sleeveless black shirt that reveals a bit of a white bandage on his right shoulder. He gives me a single nod to acknowledge my presence, and then hands me a pair of black cloth strips, the kind you wrap your hands with to spar, and offers no explanation of what to do next. I move to the wall opposite of him to get out of the way of a group of women leaving the locker room, talking and laughing and looking like they could kill me with one blow, and try to figure out the wraps. I finally get them to stay on my hands, but they looks completely ridiculous and not at all the way Clint's are tied, but I can't even begin to mentally unravel his work.

When he sees that I've at least managed to get ready, Clint moves toward the gym, still not talking, and I follow. I stop inside and stare at the ropes hanging from the thirty-foot ceiling, an obstacle course that looks just a bit deadly, a massive pool behind frosted glass along one side of the room, and off to one side, almost insignificant, normal fitness equipment like dumbbells and a chin-up bar. _I'm going to die._

Training normally takes six months, according to Coulson, but I'm on an expedited schedule. Which means there's no mercy.

**Day 1: General Fitness Test training (AKA Torture)**

I'm not terribly out of shape, but I don't have some rock-hard Jillian Michaels figure either. I have more important things to worry about than whether I look good in a swimsuit. I do run pretty often but only to make sure I'm not going to be out of breath if a standoff turns into a foot chase. Actually, any exercise I've done is all pretty much geared toward making me better at my job, not making me into the perfectly fit woman. What real human being has time for that? Honestly.

I've never been self-conscious about my body, but then again, I've never been training with a guy who hates me ( _and is really insanely attractive… but Henley, stop thinking about that!_ ) so the fact that my tank top clings to curves that are in the wrong places does give me a few moments of uncertainty. And then I remember, I've got much more to worry about than a little extra body fat. Like how much today is gonna hurt.

"What do I start with?" I ask Clint, and he totally ignores me, swinging himself up onto the highest of the crosswise pull-up bars almost effortlessly. _Wonderful. I have no idea how to train for this stupid fitness field test and he hates me so much he isn't even going to tell me what to do._

There are about fifteen other agents training over here already, maybe I can ask one of them for some help. Several look like newbies like me, struggling to follow their instructors' directions, and I don't dare interrupt them or their serious-looking mentors to ask for help. A woman training alone appears middle-age and seems to know what she's doing, so I decide she's my best bet.

I narrowly dodge the end of the barbell she's lifting, and then she catches sight of me. "Can I help you?"

"I'm supposed to be training for the field test but my instructor is ignoring me and I don't know what to do."

She follows my gaze to Clint, who is calmly doing pull-ups and acting like he's the only person in the room, totally ignoring the rest of the agents. "Oh, that's rough, kid. You got the short end of the stick for sure, getting assigned to Barton. He's not known for being the most understanding instructor." _She thinks I'm another regular trainee. If I tell her the truth, Clint_ will _kill me._

"Can you help me then?"

"I would if I could, but every field test is different depending on the specialty you're going into. I'm only familiar with the training schedule for the Infiltration specialty test. What classification are you?"

I want to say 'linguistics' but I don't think that would be a good idea. "Sniper," I deadpan. I mean, that's what Clint is and I'm supposed to work right alongside him, right?

"Yeah, out of luck there. Sorry." The woman hoists the heavy barbell back onto its stand. "Ask him again, maybe he just isn't paying attention to you because he wants to see if you're going to give up or not."

 _Good advice._ I look back at Clint, who has switched to doing the pull-ups one-handed. Then I notice that his hearing aid isn't in. He must not wear it to train. _OK. That's a little better._

I get right in front of him, where he can't help but see me, and sign **What should I do?** with the furrowed eyebrows possibly a little overdone for forming the question.

Clint looks down at me and then sighs, drops off the bar, and signs **Follow me.** He hands me a pair of dumbbells that feel like they're going to rip my shoulders out of joint and then demonstrates the proper arm motion with ones twice the weight of mine that he seems to use with no struggle at all, even with his injured right arm.

By the end of the morning, I've managed to completely humiliate myself during sit-ups, although doing push-ups wasn't so bad. And the hand and arm strength I've developed from doing exercises to prevent ruining my wrists while signing means I actually managed to impress Clint a little with my pull-ups, although he insisted I was doing them wrong and needed to work with my back, not my arms.

When noon comes, a bell goes off and pretty much everyone in the gym, agents and trainees alike, grab their gear and stream toward the locker rooms. I'm really hoping Clint will follow. Food sounds heavenly right now-my stomach has been complaining for the past two hours-and I really just want a few minutes, _ok, maybe more like an hour,_ to sit down and recover. I've drained my water bottle dry but Clint hasn't given me a break long enough to refill it.

I should have known, the way this morning was going, that my luck isn't going to change anytime soon. Clint reaches into one pocket of his cargo pants, pulls out a couple protein bars and some packets of dried fruit, and tosses me one of each. **You have five minutes. Eat.**

I rush to the water fountain first, and refill my bottle, drain it dry, and fill it again. Then I gulp down the bar, chew through the dried fruit as fast as possible-draining my water again in the process-and then refill the bottle.

I don't even have time to be surprised that the whole thing only took me four and a half minutes before Clint is shoving the dumbbells back in my hands. _And here we go again…_

When Clint finally lets me go at five p.m., I'm sweating like a horse, exhausted, and so sore I can hardly move. Clint, who has been doing his own workout in between showing me how to do the steps of mine, takes off, still energetic, for the obstacle course. He turns around long enough to sign to me **Six a.m. tomorrow be on time** and then he's scaling the nearest wall like a monkey.

I take the longest shower I've ever had in the locker room, and wish I'd brought clean clothes with me so I didn't have to put my sweaty ones back on after. Another thing to remember for tomorrow. I'm too exhausted even to drag myself to the dining hall for dinner, so I crash in my room after digging out a package of trail mix from my go bag stash. I'm asleep before I even finish it.


	7. Chapter 7

**Day 2: Self-defense (AKA I get the crap kicked out of me and try to figure out how to hit back)**

I scramble out of bed at the first notes of my alarm and regret moving. Every muscle in my body starts trying to seize up, and I sit like a marble statue on the edge of my bed until the waves of pain subside enough to get up. And then I look at the clock.

 _Crap. Crap, crap, crap_. I forgot to reset my phone's alarm last night. It's already six a.m. Clint's not gonna be happy. I get dressed as fast as I can; I think the yoga pants are inside out but _I don't freaking care right now and I'm so dead._ I briefly gain enough presence of mind to grab my water bottle and then I'm flying down the hall, dodging agents right and left.

I arrive in the gym at ten minutes after six, sweating and panting. I run in and look around frantically until I see that Clint is already on the sparring mats with a woman whose flaming red hair makes her instantly identifiable. _Natasha "Black Widow" Romanoff. Clint's field partner. Oh, crap. Bad enough being late to training with Clint. Worse being late to training with the Black Widow._

 **Nice of you to show up, Henley,** Clint signs, and motions me onto the mat with a frown. I realize he and Nat both have their hands wrapped and that my hand protection is still back in my room on the end of my sink shelf. _And I thought this day couldn't get worse._

"How familiar are you with basic self-defense?" Natasha asks, and her voice surprises me. I barely heard her on the videos, and mostly she was speaking foreign languages, but I'm shocked at how _normal_ she sounds. Not even a hint of a Russian accent like I was expecting. _She's good. Really good._

"I know a bit. Took some classes. I live in a pretty bad neighborhood and meet a lot of…interesting people…in my day job so…"

"Well, forget everything they taught you. Those classes teach you how to escape a situation. I'm going to teach you how to neutralize one." She suddenly spins around, grabs Clint's arm, and even though he must have at least seventy pounds on her, throws him over her shoulder to the ground. He doesn't make any move to get up.

"The first thing you have to know is that you have to be aware of your surroundings at all times." I nod. That doesn't sound so different from the training I had.

"Not just who's around you, but what. Start thinking, when you walk into a room, 'Where are the exits? The entry points? What can I use as a weapon if need be?'" She goes on and I wish I had a notebook because there is no way I'll ever remember all this and how can that amount of mental processing be second nature to _anyone?_

The actual physical combat is at least a little easier, although I get the feeling that Clint is taking a perverse pleasure in standing to the side and watching me get the crap beat out of me. Nat teaches me how to stand and brace myself to get the most force from my actions while absorbing any hits I take. She demonstrates, quite forcefully, how my stance is all wrong. I wish I could just lay here and stare at the ceiling all day.

She teaches me how to hit and kick without breaking my own bones-apparently the way I kick will cause me to smash every toe if I'm wearing anything less protective than steel-reinforced boots. She also demonstrates a heel-of-the-hand hit that looks-and feels-like she's releasing some sort of force field. It's really sort of epic. If I can ever get breathing again to learn how to do it.

"Now all this is useful if you're taking on someone your own height," Nat says, wiping a wayward red curl off her cheek. "But," she assesses my somewhat lacking vertical growth with a small frown, "it doesn't seem like you'll be doing much of that. The majority of your fights will be with someone bigger and stronger than you. Clint," she calls over her shoulder, and he must be reading her lips because he straightens and walks over, "Your turn."

 **Whole different thought process when your opponent is bigger than you. Attacking low and fast is the only way to win.** I barely have time to process the signing before I'm flat on my back-again-with no idea what happened this time.

"Leg sweeps are extremely effective if you can follow through without falling over," Nat says from the sideline. _Oh, that's what happened._

I attempt the same move on Clint, with limited success. Mostly just the fact that I don't fall after slamming into the bridge pilings disguised as legs he's got counts as a win in my book. After about five minutes of this, Clint seems to be getting bored.

He suddenly grabs me as if to get me into a headlock, and for the first time all day I react on pure instinct. I'm hot, and tired, and angry, and I want to be left ALONE! I slam out with the open-hand hit Nat showed me, aiming squarely for the shoulder that I can see the bandage on.

To my eternal shock, it actually freaking _works._ Clint lets go and actually stumbles back a pace, putting a hand to his arm.

 **Oh my gosh I'm sorry. Did I hurt you?** I sign quickly.

 **Nothing permanently damaged. Nice work.** It takes me a minute to process that he just complimented me.

 **What?** **I thought I was cheating.**

**There's no cheating when you're fighting for your life. Use your opponents' weaknesses against them whenever you can. You might survive the field after all.**

_I guess I just unintentionally impressed him. OK, I stand half a chance._

"You're got good instincts under pressure. That right there is something most new recruits don't have," Nat says. "To remember a vulnerability and exploit it like that; that's something I can't teach. And if you've got that kind of fighting mentality, I can teach you the rest."

It's as if that one action flipped a switch in both agents. Up to this point they saw me as weak, helpless, and naïve. Now they know what I'm capable of. And the rest of training, even though it goes almost as painfully as the first half, suddenly doesn't seem so bad.

**Day 3: Swim test training (AKA Awkward moments, anyone?)**

I have black and blue marks that look like I got trampled by a herd of elephants when I take a shower (at five-thirty, this is too early for any normal human being to be moving) the next morning. I'm pretty sure the largest one is from the demonstration of what I've dubbed the "force-field attack", which actually so far is my favorite. Maybe because that's the only one I used that actually worked.

The fact that we're going to be swimming today gives me some hope that my muscles won't be complete fire by the time today is over, but if the swim training is anything like the rest, I'm probably just wishing for the impossible.

I didn't even think to pack a swimsuit, but I don't think anyone will mind if I swim in my workout top and the somewhat athletic-looking shorts I sleep in. Hopefully.

I eat lightly, even though my stomach is seriously considering staging a picket protest at my eating habits the past few days, because I _will not_ end up with a cramp halfway through the morning. Made that mistake at summer camp as a high school junior and had to be rescued by a freshman. I mean, he was a big freshman, but still…I'm mentally scarred for life. And hyper-careful about swimming.

When I get to the gym this time I bring my bag, with a change of clothes, with me. Yesterday I was in too much of a hurry to remember that I need clean clothes after showering and had to deal with the gross sweaty ones AGAIN. I really need to find the laundry room in this place.

I drop my bag in a locker in the pool section and walk into the humid, chlorine-fumed air. The pool is fairly empty this early in the morning except for a few agents swimming laps. Clint isn't one of them. _Where is he? If he forgot to set_ his _alarm I'm so giving him a hard time about it._

I wander down toward the deep end-which is really, really the deep end, the far wall reads a twenty-foot depth-when about halfway there I see something dark on the bottom. I'm just trying to decide if that's someone's sweatshirt that fell in because _it's really big and it's sort of moving and oh my gosh is that a person_ when The Shape suddenly begins moving much faster and in the direction of the surface.

I bite back a scream of shock as a human being does indeed surface, and then realize it's Clint. _Wow, how long was he down there? It's been at least a minute and a half since I came in. Two minutes? Three? Do they want me to do that because if they do I'm gonna die._

And then I really do scream because while I've been doing mental countdowns Clint has swum right up to the edge and all of a sudden he grabs my knee and pulls me forward so that I land belly-first in the water with a painful _smack_ on my already bruised chest.

I gulp a lungful of water and get disoriented and flail my way to the surface, spitting and coughing. I grab the edge of the pool for support and Clint swims up beside me, smiling deviously.

**Whenever you're around water, you have to be more careful.**

He's signing while treading water, and all of a sudden I realize he's just wearing a pair of black shorts and no shirt and _wow he's really hot_.

Ok, I don't think that the sudden struggle to breathe has anything to do with the fact that I just got thrown in the deep end, literally. Clint's entire upper body is as muscled as his arms, and as if I didn't have enough problems with my focusing this morning…

And then, because despite my best efforts I'm still staring, I see the scars. That sends a whole different kind of weight into my stomach that has nothing to do with the butterflies I'm currently trying to chase out.

I don't think I've ever seen anyone with this many scars. Not even Frank, the LA police officer I dated for a while when we were both young and a little crazy. It ended badly, and I don't even want to dredge up the memories, so I push the thoughts aside.

But seriously, Clint looks like a patchwork of knife gashes, stab marks, old burns, bullet wounds, and who-knows-what-else. I can't bring myself to ask about any of them, for more than just the reason that that really isn't what we should be focusing on right now and that Clint would probably think I'm being a creeper.

I just flat out don't know if I'm ready for the pain that those stories inevitably carry. And a tiny part of me realizes that the most frightening reason I'm not going to ask is that I'm secretly wondering if I'll end up the same way in five, ten years. After all, I'm supposed to follow Clint wherever he goes. Into the same situations that gave him those scars.

**The main idea of all this is to not drown.**

I think he's kidding with me until we start. Then I realize that I could very well drown doing this.

I tread water for what feels like hours, swim laps without touching the bottom or sides, and then, when I'm pretty sure I can't do another thing, Clint grabs me and drags me under.

I've heard about things like this from cops I worked with. Tests where you swim until exhausted and then a person who's been watching pretty much tries to drown you and you have to fight them off. I thought it sounded horrible, and I'd heard stories of people who actually had to be resuscitated after it. I had made up my mind then and there that I was never becoming a police officer, for that reason. Oops.

I go for Clint's shoulder again because hey, it worked yesterday and I'm kind of out of options, but he's ready for that and I just can't get free. I start to panic and I'm running out of air fast because I couldn't get a good breath before he dragged me down.

I can see blackness at the edges of my vision and I'm starting to go limp and _whoever said drowning is peaceful lied because my heart is going to beat right out of my chest but my life isn't flashing before my eyes and do the people who write those things really know what they're talking about,_ and then I'm practically flying out of the water onto the cement next to the pool and coughing out water and looking like a drowned puppy probably but too relieved to care.

I roll over and go into a fresh round of near-hyperventilating because Clint is leaning over me apparently ready to give me mouth-to-mouth and _holy cow that's way too close and he's soaking wet and he's gorgeous and stop, stop, stop._

**You OK?**

**Think so. Just swallowed the Pacific here.** I try to be funny to get my mind on any other track but the ridiculously hot guy who _just tried to drown me. Remember that little fact, Henley?_

 **I think it's time to call it a day**. Clint helps me too my feet because I'm still shaking and drapes a towel around my shoulders. _He's being nice. Why is he being nice? Does he feel guilty about almost drowning me or-oh no. not both of us._ And that's the last thing I process before I really do well and truly pass out.


	8. Chapter 8

I spend the next three days of my already too short training period in the infirmary trying not to get pneumonia from the water in my lungs. For once, I'm lucky.

The day I'm let out I realize that I'm desperate to get back to training. Not only have I lost valuable time to prepare for my first real mission, but despite the pain and hard work, I'm actually enjoying the feeling of becoming a field agent. I'm getting skills that a few weeks ago I thought were reserved for black-belts and movie stunts, and it's kind of awesome.

Clint, when I meet him outside the weapons range, is back to his usual straight-faced, untalkative self and I wonder if what I thought I saw there at the pool was just a figment of my oxygen-starved imagination. Because Clint doesn't seem any different. So I quash my own confusion and get back in training mode.

**Day 4: Weapons training (AKA Favorite day)**

When I place a pair of earmuffs on my head, I realize that signers have a distinct advantage during weapons work; no one can hear anyone else speaking and Clint and I can still communicate. Granted, it's a lot of him reminding me not to drop my hands in between shots and how to properly line up the sights on the standard-issue Glock 17 I'm practicing with, but still.

Once again, my steady, strong hands are an advantage. Once I figure out how to _aim,_ that is. Clint's demonstration is more than a little intimidating when he picks up my gun with one hand, fires off an entire clip in seconds, and nails the center of the target each time.

But with his help, I slowly do get better, and when he finally praises me after a three-shots-in-a-row bull's-eye, I can't help but feel proud. After all, I'm getting the thumbs up from the best marksman and sharpshooter in the world.

Knives are next, and although my throwing skills are atrocious and seem to end with the handle hitting the target much more than the blade, I do like the hand-to-hand combat style of a knife. My favorite is a five inch thin blade, double sided and a bit like a dagger.

I add it to the checklist of standard issue weapons I want to be kitted with on missions, which Clint handed me when we started. Along with the Glock 17, which is mandatory for me to carry in a thigh or waist holster (I chose thigh because it's easier for me to grab quickly), I have a small boot knife, two of these dagger blades in side sheathes, and a thicker multipurpose blade that will rest in the small of my back. I opt out of the shoulder holstered "baby Glock" that a lot of the female agents carry; I need my arms to be as unrestricted as possible for signing.

This is the first night I don't feel dead.

**Days 5,6: Specialized training (AKA Clint tries to convince me I do not want to work with him)**

I'm craning my neck back to see the top of the wall I'm supposed to be scaling. Clint's already halfway up and I have no idea how he got there because I can't even see any handholds. _Does S.H.I.E.L.D. issue gecko gloves, by chance?_

Clint makes it to the top and looks down at me. **Hurry up, you're already dead if we're being chased.**

**Then show me how to get up there.**

**I won't have time to show you in the field. You should have been paying attention and staying one move behind me the whole time. Now figure it out.**

Two hours, three nasty falls, and one near-miss later, I'm on top of the wall. My last fall was probably about ten feet, and even though there was a mat down there it still HURTS.

Clint looks at me once-he's done the entire course at least ten more times and each time I can't follow him-and then jumps a nearly eight-foot gap between this wall and the next platform, from a dead standstill. No room up here to get a running start.

I look down. Still, only about ten feet, but I don't have a safety harness and if I fall wrong I'm dead. Clint saw my trying to put the harness on this morning and none-too-gently corrected me.

**There's no such thing as a safety line in the field. Learn to do it right or you'll be dependent on that harness to save you when you should be depending on yourself.**

I make a flying, flailing leap and manage to get my fingers on the edge of the platform. Before promptly realizing that's too much weight for them to support and dropping to the ground with a tuck-and-roll that is honestly more graceful than I expected.

Clint follows me down. **OK, maybe not starting with this. Let's get you jumping gaps on flat ground first.**

That's much better. By the end of the day I can clear six feet, although the insides of my thighs are over-stretched and my feet and ankles are complaining about my awkward landings.

Rope climbing went slightly better due to the hand and arm strength that helped me on the pull-ups, and it's actually kind of fun, although Clint did laugh at me when I tried to swing around like Tarzan, crashed into the climbing net, and got tangled upside down fifteen feet off the floor.

The next day is pretty much the same, although Clint actually lets me stop working out mid-afternoon and starts teaching me 'danger words' that I'll have to alert him to if I hear on mission. If there's one thing I shine at, it's languages, and when he's done training me I'm fairly confident in my ability to recognize "American", "Agent", "Gun", "Bomb", "Plan" and several other potentially important words and phrases, in Russian, Arabic, Chinese, and Spanish. More languages will come later.

I'm finally starting to feel like I'm finding a rhythm as I collapse into bed, still running over the various languages' word for "spy" like a scratched record in my brain. Maybe, just maybe, this won't end in disaster.

**Day 7: Espionage (AKA Spy 101)**

If I had any confidence at all in my ability to act, it was shattered the minute Natasha showed up in the conference room in an evening gown, black wig, and perfect Southern drawl.

There's no way I'm going to become a master of disguise in a few weeks of lessons, but Nat does teach me how to change the sound of my voice enough to make it unrecognizable to all but the most sophisticated software, and how to choose clothes that suit a mission while blending into various cultures. This time I brought a stenographer's pad courtesy of an office worker I struck up a friendship with over breakfast coffee, and I take copious notes.

Natasha also teaches me how subtle body language and voice tones can act almost like mind control if used effectively, and demonstrates on at least three of her male co-workers, with hilarious results that are more than likely classified information with Natasha being involved.

I'm not so sure that I could manage to be as convincing as she is, since she seems to completely lose her moral compass when she goes into what I've taken to calling "Black Widow" mode. Natasha is nice enough, and maybe even a potential friend-she's confided in me at one point that she's glad I'm here because sooner or later Clint is going to get too reckless and get himself killed-but the Black Widow is terrifying. I'm scared of her even in training when I know it's an act, and I gain a new respect for Clint having recruited her when she worked for hire.

As the weeks fly by, I become more attuned to my schedule and more comfortable with the work. Although Clint is the instructor most days, he's never been part of my espionage training and Nat jokes-I think-that it's because Clint hasn't got a stealthy bone in him.

Natasha isn't the only one teaching that segment of my training. May is another regular fixture of Spy 101, as I've taken to calling espionage day. She teaches me about the best kind of weapons to hide in various types of clothing, and where to hide them-it gets pretty interesting pretty fast with the straight-faced May's explanations.

However, she's not as serious once she gets to know me a little better, and when I tell her that I'm having a hard time keeping up the pace on my daily workouts she suggests that I mentally play a fast song on repeat and assures me that's what she does. She even shares her favorite workout tune with me, which I'm shocked to discover is from the soundtrack of a Disney musical, "To Be a Man" from _Mulan_. The look she gives me after telling me the song suggests that if I ever tell another living soul about this I will die painfully.

I don't share the song, but I do listen to it, and she's right, it's perfect to work out to, especially when I'm practicing hits and kicks for self-defense or running laps around the track. I try not to hum it out loud and draw attention, which really isn't much of a problem when I can barely breathe as it is.

But I think I might have the most fun with Bobbi. Although she keeps reminding me not to get attached to Clint, which makes me wonder if she's still a little in love and therefore jealous, or if it really is just woman-to-woman good advice, she's cool and during my second to last session of the espionage training, we end up coming up with what may be the worst plan ever.

The day before, Clint was giving me a hard time about being scared of jumping a gap in the obstacle course, and he was so harsh about it I was close to breaking down. When I tell Bobbi how fed up I am with him right now, she grins.

"I know a good way to fix that little problem," she says, and I'm all ears.

The next morning, as Clint downs the paper cup of coffee he always has before we start-now that I actually show up early enough to see his pre-training routine, Bobbi and I lean against some of the obstacle course nearby, talking about nothing.

All of a sudden, Bobbie look over at him, then back at me, and asks loudly, "Henley, do blueberries float?"

"You know, I'm not sure," I reply in the same tone. "I don't think so." Clint ignores us until he takes another drink of his coffee, and then he frowns, looks down into the cup, then back up at Bobbi and me who have our best innocent faces on.

I'm going to regret that as soon as training starts. I know it. But the look on Clint's face was so worth it.


	9. Chapter 9

I sit in the Quinjet's passenger bay, stomach knotted as tightly as my fingers over the deceptively innocent-looking manila folder in my lap. My first field mission, and I have no idea what I'm doing. It doesn't help that Clint is nowhere to be found and I have no inclination to get up and look for him since I think if I stand up I might be sick. But I'm slightly concerned about how well we'll work together on this job.

Clint, I've discovered, isn't exactly what I expected. From the first few days and everything I'd read, I'd been quite prepared to be dealing with a stoic, serious, mission-focused person. But as training continued and we both became more comfortable with each other, I learned several things.

Clint is hopelessly childish about anything involving visits to the infirmary. When I accidentally gave him a nasty knife slash while training, he simply tore off a piece of his shirt to wrap it up and then called Nat to ask if she could stitch him up.

When her phone went to a recorded answer of "This is Natasha Romanoff, I am currently on classified assignment. Barton or Coulson please leave a message, all others do not disturb on pain of slow death, and if you're selling something I will trace this call and END you," I could see the moment of disappointment when he realized he was going to have to go to the medical wing after all.

He ended up doing his level best to convince Coulson and three different nurses that he really didn't need to get it looked at, it was fine, and finally failed. When Coulson practically dragged him through the medical suite's doors, he reminded me of a kid I'd worked with when I started out as an interpreter, the time I had to accompany his family for his yearly tetanus shot.

I also discovered that Clint is very, very protective of his coffee. I ended up running twenty extra laps the day Bobbi and I put blueberries in it, and I haven't dared touch it since.

Another thing he's remarkably protective of is his gear. Even though he doesn't practice with his mission gear, instead using a plain recurve bow and arrows that look like the ones I could pick up from a sporting goods store, he doesn't let anyone else shoot with his equipment. I borrow a bow from a special equipment locker one day so we can test my skill with that, but I'm hopeless at aiming the arrow and I don't have enough pull-back strength to send it any distance with force. So I'm content to watch Clint stand next to me as I throw knives, admiring the easy, fluid way he draws an arrow, nocks it, fires, and has the next one in the air before I can even get my knife lined up.

Clint absolutely adores dogs, which I discovered somewhat accidentally. A bomb detection dog in training got loose in the halls one day and was wandering around looking for someone to play with him. I didn't find out about it until, wondering why Clint was an hour late to our workout, I started wandering around and found him play-wrestling with the big Belgian Malinois in one of the office hallways. Neither he nor the dog wanted to leave, even when the out-of-breath handler finally showed up and got a leash on his runaway. I think I may need a leash for Clint.

Finally, Clint has absolutely horrible timing. The morning we get summoned to Coulson's office, after my final week of training and a "pass" stamped across each of my field tests-I still don't know how I managed the written portion of the Espionage one-he's become an absolute klutz. He's tripped over at least two people's feet, and there's a massive stain from his coffee on the front of his shirt. "Aw, coffee, no," he mutters, scrubbing at the mark with a handful of wet paper towel as we walk and almost colliding with a wall outcropping in the process.

When we finally make it to the office, Coulson is seated behind his desk, and there are two files in front of him. "I think I've found a good one," He says, more to me than Clint. "Simple in-and-out, just need to retrieve some of our tech that got lost when a drone went down from this place," he spreads open one of the files to show an aerial view of a large walled compound that by the architecture I can see looks Italian.

"Federico DeMariannzo is the owner of this villa, where we believe the drone is being held. He's one of the shadow leaders of the new wing of the Sicilian mob, and he's looking to cement his position with the aging heads of the family," Coulson continues, displaying a picture of a youngish man with olive skin, black hair, and calculating brown eyes.

"If his people are able to crack the encrypted data on that drone, he'll have a list of names and locales of our operatives in southern Europe that will most certainly give him enough pull to convince the family he's ready to lead. We need to get the data files out or destroy them before he can use them. The drone has a tracker, and this is the location the beacon last pinged before it went dark."

"Went dark?" I ask. "Doesn't that mean they found and destroyed it, and probably moved the drone again?"

"No. If the beacon is removed from its housing it emits a different ping signal to notify us. This one just went dead, which means it's probably been moved to a concrete-reinforced underground vault that's blocking the signal."

"Sounds simple enough," Clint says. "Just a night infil over the wall, break into wherever he's holding that drone, and pull out before anyone's the wiser."

"This can't be a smash and grab, Barton. Do that, and the mob's going to know there was a third party and start looking, hard, and I don't care how clean you make it, they will trace it back eventually. If you can corrupt or delete the data, there's less chance of Sicily becoming another one of the places I can't send you to again."

"So what's the play?"

"This." Coulson removes a thick piece of expensive-looking cream colored paper from the file. "DeMariannzo's only sister is getting married this weekend, at her brother's villa. He's very close to her, the only family he has left after his parents were killed by a rival mob faction, and he'll spare no expense to make her happy. He's invited a great many people on his sister's recommendation alone. Two of them, Simone and Pierre Chantroc, just happen to be also in one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s holding facilities right now, under investigation for a biological weapons research project that they ended up selling to the highest bidder." He reveals a photograph of a couple who do actually look a bit like Clint and me. If the sister isn't too close with them, we may be able to pull this off.

"How well does she know them?" Clint asks my question for me.

"Friends of Concetta's from her college years in Paris," Phil says. "I doubt she'll really remember them well enough to blow your cover. Here's your cover stories, make sure you know this back to front before you leave."

"When do we leave?" I ask.

"Tomorrow morning," Phil replies. "And I don't suppose you brought a dress in that duffel of yours. Might as well go find something for a wedding." He hands me a S.H.I.E.L.D. credit card. "These are for use for mission-related expenditures only, and keep in mind that I do review all purchase receipts from personal cards that you submit for reimbursement." He shoots a pointed glance at Clint and I wonder just what purchases Clint has tried to pass off as mission-related.

May drives me into the nearest city, which I realize is Las Cruces, New Mexico (I was right about our locale), and it's the first time I've been out of the compound in weeks. I revel in the dusty air, the multicolored and messy surroundings, and the chaos of people after the regimented, colorless atmosphere of the base. May disappears with instructions to meet her at the car at four p.m., and I wander around until I find a resale shop, my go-to place for getting clothes.

I'm trying to pick out the perfect dress, not too flashy and something easy to run in, and loose enough to hide a weapon-Nat's words are burned into my brain and I'll never see fashion the same away again. Then I see it hanging on a rack in a corner, a knee-length two-tone purple dress with shoulder straps and a low v-neck. It reminds me of Clint's circus-era costume, and I smile as I pull it off the rack. Yep, perfect.

After May returns me to the facility, with no explanation of her activities during the afternoon, I pack and then fall into bed, sleeping restlessly with dreams of walls I can't climb and men with angry eyes chasing me. Which means that by the time I'm awakened by my alarm to leave for the Quinjet transport, I feel worse than if I hadn't slept at all, and I doze fitfully during half the flight.

I'm jerked back to present surroundings when the Quinjet dips stomach-tossingly. Clint steps back into the passenger area from the front cockpit and I sign **How much longer?**

 **Don't be impatient, we're almost there.** He retrieves a black bag from a storage locker on the side of the passenger bay and opens it. Inside are the black modified recurve bow I've seen him use in the mission videos, and a quiver of black arrows. I lean in, trying to see if I can figure out the mechanism that changes the tips. I remember seeing one video of Clint using first an exploding arrowhead, then a grappling hook to swing off a building.

He catches me staring and I pull back, a little concerned that he's mad. But I have yet to see him practice with the more advanced gear, and I'm really curious. I wish he'd used this bow during our weapons training, but then again, maybe it's best that there isn't the potential for random explosions in the weapons range.

**The only time you even attempt to use this is if I'm unable to and there are no other options. It's actually more complicated than it looks and if you try screwing around with it you could blow anyone in the immediate vicinity sky high.**

**Got it.**

**There's only a few rules to working with me, but they're important. Don't mess with my gear, my friends, my dog, and my coffee.** He smiles a little at that last one, and I guess he's remembering the prank.

He pulls a phone out of his pocket and slips his hearing aid on, then dials someone up. "Hey, Katie-Kate," he says when the person on the other end answers. "Can you go pick up Lucky and take care of him for a couple days? Gonna be out of town and you had your phone off last night."

I can't hear the other side of the conversation, but I get a pretty decent idea of what it is by Clint's next comments. "No, Kate, I am not using that new quiver again. I know. Yes, I realize it malfunctioned and the grappling arrows got mixed up with the boomerang ones, R&D says they're fixing it."

There's another chattery pause, and then "Yes, I still carry them Kate, they're useful!" Then he hangs up.

"She doesn't understand the importance of boomerang arrows," he says almost mournfully. I don't dare interject that _I_ don't understand the importance of them either. And then there's another dip and we really are landing this time.

It's a fairly short ride from the hidden landing strip to the safe house where we'll be lodging until the night of the party. A very young agent, Michelina SantaClara, is our contact, a slender girl with brown hair, a thick Sicilian accent, and the brightest smile I've seen an agent ever have, except for when Clint found that dog.

"I have all the documents you'll need to pass as the Chantrocs," she says, handing over passports, wallets, and a set of the cream paper invitations. "The wedding will be in two days, but there will be a preparatory gala at the villa tomorrow night, and you are both expected there tomorrow afternoon and will stay the rest of the weekend."

The time difference is really messing me up, Italy is eight hours ahead of New Mexico and although we left early in the morning it's nearly night here now. I'm exhausted from stress and the long flight, and after Michelina shows me the room I'm going to stay in, I flop down on the bare mattress and I'm out like a light.

The next morning, after transferring all our documents to new suitcases along with our clothes for the trip, so that we have no ID's or other accidentally labeled items identifying the two of us as anyone other than Simone and Pierre Chantroc (although if anyone actually bothers to search them we're screwed because all our weapons are in them), Clint and I leave the house, with the small car we came in yesterday and a stern warning from Michelina to bring it back in pristine condition.

Although the directions on the invitation assume we will be coming from the airport in a nearby town and the safe house is in the opposite direction, Clint finds DeMariannzo's villa without a problem and we arrive just before three p.m. Federico and a woman I assume to be his engaged sister are waiting under a small portico near the gates to welcome their guests.

The woman, shorter than her brother with cheerfully crinkling lines at the corners of her eyes and an almost motherly air despite the fact that she's a year younger than me, rushes up to embrace us both with alacrity, kissing our cheeks. Clint seems as uncomfortable as I am but both of us hide it well. _Thanks for all the work on controlling emotions, Nat._

"It's so wonderful to see you again, it's been years," She gushes exuberantly, while her brother watches us with a small frown and crossed arms. If his sister is warm and friendly, he's cold and aloof, the strange contrast making me think of a golden retriever beside a Siamese cat. No prizes for guessing which one has the mob ambitions.

Early on, Clint decided that my French accent wasn't consistent enough to fake, so the plan is now to say that we've been so long in America that we've picked up the accent there. It fits; the Chantrocs moved to the states in 2001 to work for a chemical engineering firm. Six years is certainly long enough to adopt a new way of talking.

But at the first words out of my mouth I begin to wonder if it was a bad idea. "It's nice to see you too, Concetta. It's been so long!" I return the kiss-and hiug greeting, but Concetta pulls back to look at me.

"Dear Heaven, you've changed. It almost seems you're shorter. And what happened to that lovely accent you had?"

"Sadly I lost it, surrounded by those absolutely artlessly speaking Americans. English is such a cold language, I say, and then switch to the French I learned in high school, which I am able to produce with a nearly flawless accent. It's the English I struggle over. "Cherie, Il est vraiment mon plaisir de voir un bon vieil ami."

"Yes, the native tongue. It suits you so much better," Concetta remarks, and I don't dare look Clint's way for fear we'll both laugh at the irony.

"But you must be exhausted from the flight. I do so hate those commercial flights, all crowded with noisy strangers. Come, You can refresh yourselves in your room before the party." She leads us in through the massive gates, whose crumbling stucco pillars are incongruously topped with sleek black security cameras, and into a large building that is not the main house from the aerial map but rather a sort of guest house.

Concetta opens a room that overlooks the courtyard and is tastefully decorated with antique items that may well be heirlooms, and then scurries off as a new arrival appears at the gate. It's only then that I realize a rather disconcerting fact. Believing that we are married, Concetta has given Clint and me a single room.

Clint has come to the same conclusion, but he finds it much more amusing than I do. "So, Madame Chantroc, which side of the bed do you prefer? I believe that the file was a bit ambiguous on that particular detail."

"You are sleeping on the sofa or I will personally make sure that you can't shoot your bow again for a very long time," I growl.

Clint has the audacity to look hurt by my remarks. "Come on, I was just kidding. But Hen, you're really going to turn _this_ down?" He gives me his cutest puppy-dog sad-eyes look.

"NOT going for it." I reiterate, setting my luggage down with a thud and turning to glance out the window at the sprawling villa. How am I going to survive a weekend of this?


	10. Chapter 10

The party begins at six p.m., according to the invitations, so we have a little time to relax and regroup. Unfortunately, getting ready for the night is not very easy when I'm sharing a room with Clint, who seems determined to make things as awkward as possible.

I claim the bathroom before Clint decides to and after a hurried shower change into a white sleeveless dress that I bought that day in town as well, since I doubted the social butterfly Simone would be caught dead wearing the same dress two days to two different events. I also doubt that Simone would be carrying a five-inch knife in a thigh sheath, but I'm not giving up my one emergency weapon.

This dress is nowhere near as upscale looking as the purple one, but I'm pretty sure understated is the new classy. _Hope that fashion trends hold in Sicily too_. I do my level best to make my hair presentable, and then wander back out into the room.

Clint is practically perching on the windowsill, taking in the layout of the compound. "Best bet, our drone in the main house. Has the most security," he mutters, pointing out a pair of burly guards and a positively superfluous array of cameras surrounding the massive stone building.

"Doesn't that seem a little obvious?" I ask. "What if there's a hiding place somewhere no one would think to look, like in one of the sheds out back?"

"That's more typical the newer the structure," Clint replies. "But this is decades of Sicilian mob tradition at its finest. The original builders would have been the sort to be distrustful and never let their secrets out from under their very noses. And Federico is too set on following in his family's footsteps to break tradition. No, he'll use the vault that was made when this place was first built."

Clint disappears into the bathroom to clean up before the party, and I grab a book from the night table at random and sit down on the bed with it, trying to kill time and calm my nerves. I then realize it's in Italian and I can't even read it.

I put the book back and, with nothing better to do, start practicing signing, running over some of the more difficult fingerspelling combinations and signs that I need to consistently work on, and I lose myself in the motions so much that I forget where I am and what I'm about to do.

I look up when the bathroom door slams and Clint walks out in a towel- _didn't he get the idea from me changing in there that I wish he'd do the same? Are there NO personal boundaries when it comes to spies?-_ and I do my level best to forget he exists and go back to signing furiously, focusing on a picture on the far wall and trying to sign the names of as many objects as I can see.

I'm broken out of my little world of determined concentration again by Clint muttering to himself and sounding more and more frustrated. I look up to see that he's trying to fix the corners of the collar on the shirt he's wearing.

"Freaking collar stays. Knew I never shoulda let Kate put them on."

"Here, I know how those work." I've put collar stays in dozens of times, first for my little brother and then on my own work outfits. I hate curling collars.

"Never could figure the darn things out. Kate and Nat know how to work 'em, so I never really bother." I reach up and fiddle with the small flat metal pieces until they are properly positioned, highly aware of how close I am to Clint and the clean soap-and-aftershave smell now that he's showered.

"There. Gotcha." I step back, and Clint runs a finger around his collar, clearly uncomfortable in the dress clothes he's got to wear for the cover. And even though he really does look pretty sharp in a tie, I have to admit that I prefer his usual choice of clothing as well. The practical, black gear suits him.

"Ready to give them a show, _Simone?_ " Clint asks, and I let him loop his arm through mine as we step down into the golden light of late afternoon and the growing crowd of early guests.

Mingling was never really my thing at parties. I was the wallflower in high school, and then in college I mostly only hung out with my best friend, and the two of us would let the rest of the party carry on while we made up our own dance steps and just didn't care what anyone else thought. But now I'm forced to make polite small talk and pretend to know a whole contingent of random people. Yep, pretty much every class reunion I've bothered to go to.

I can tell that all the people and petty conversation are as hard for Clint to stomach as for me. He's a sniper, used to being alone and undisturbed with only his own thoughts for company for hours on end. Being surrounded by a lot of noisy people, especially with his less than perfect hearing aid, has got to be torturous.

I'm deeply relieved when Clint pulls me aside and signs, **Are you ready to actually do something?**

**YES.**

**Ok, we need to get in that house and look around. The signs on the doors say restrooms inside so it's a perfect excuse to get in. and if we act like we've had a few glasses too many, no one is going to get too suspicious or curious if we "accidentally" end up in the wrong part of the house. Can you fake being drunk?**

**Yes. It's not like I've never done anything crazy in my life.** As a matter of fact, that's how I got my first and only ride in a police car; after a hostage situation that ended particularly horribly I decided to try to take the edge off. I drank something the bartender said was mild and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I don't remember much but apparently I tried to ride the horse statue in a nearby park and a night patrol officer took pity on me, checked my driver's license, and took me home. Aside from a few sips as wedding toasts and then here for my cover, I haven't touched alcohol since. So yeah, I can fake drunk.

**Good.**

We stumble into the house like we're drunk off our rockers, and instead of going down a wide hall where fancily lettered signs in Sicilian, French, Spanish, and English clearly label the presence of restrooms, we continue to weave our way, faking for the benefit of any cameras watching now, toward a flight of stairs.

At the bottom, in front of a wrought-iron gate, a bored-looking guard is standing, and he looks up and the sound of my heels clicking on the stone stairs.

Beyond the guard's shoulder, I can see a wine cellar cut deep into the solid rock of the island's foundations, and I feel a silent rush of excitement. I think we've just found our vault.

"You can't be down here. This is off limits to guests." The guard's hand goes to the side of his belt in a move I've quickly learned in training to beware of.

"We were just looking for a quiet place," Clint slurs, and tightens his grip on me.

"Try your room." The guard is impassive.

"Not adventurous enough. She likes adventure," Clint mutters, and then before I know it he's kissing me hard and _oh gosh just stop I know Nat says public displays of affection are great because they make people uncomfortable but they also make the people stuck_ doing _them uncomfortable. Yes, I may find Clint insanely attractive, but I am his interpreter, and there are rules against interpreter/client relationships. And didn't Bobbi warn me this would happen?_

"Just get out of here," The guard croaks, turning a bit pink, and I can see that he's trying desperately to avoid us doing anything more mentally scarring. _Thanks, Nat._

We stumble back up the stairs and across the courtyard back to our room, and I can't help but feel a little bit proud of my part in managing to convince the guard we weren't a threat and actually finding the vault. This is my life now, and I actually end up giggling a little with the sheer unbelievability of the fact that I, Henley McBride, am now a secret agent. I don't even bother to hide my thrilled look, it just adds to our supposed drunken cover that I'm laughing and grinning like an idiot.

When we get back to the room, Clint immediately pulls out his hearing aid, removes his tie, and flops onto the couch. **That was awful.**

**At least we found the vault.**

**Only good part of the whole evening. Those people were too loud and totally insufferable and even the wine they were serving was terrible, I've had better in street bars in Hungary.**

**You think you're funny.**

**I'm not kidding, it was awful. You'd think, for a rich Sicilian mob family, these guys would have better taste.**

**I thought it was fine. Granted, I didn't have much or I would have been out of it for real. Wait, how much of your goofing off was an act? How many did you have?** I swear, if he's going to have a hangover tomorrow and mess up this whole thing, after all I've gone through to help make it work, I'm gonna kill him myself.

He doesn't answer me directly. **Free drinks are the only perks of these stupid undercover high-society ops. And sometimes the partner.**

I wonder if this wasn't one of the times he was happy with his co-worker. **Did I do something wrong?**

**No, you did everything just right. That's the problem.**

I'm left to puzzle over that because he's snoring before I can finish the next sign. I give up, change into pajamas, and crawl into bed as well. For a moment, the large bed feels so empty with just me, and I start to wish I'd agreed to let Clint sleep here too. Then I tell myself it's just the glass of wine messing with my head and sink into an uneasy doze.

I wake up the next morning-well, closer to afternoon because we didn't leave that party until almost two a.m.-and shake a still sleeping Clint awake. He seems a little out of it from last night, but after I make us coffee from a small percolator pot in the kitchenette off our suite, he livens up a lot, and I'm pretty sure he'll be fine. The coffee is the best I've ever had, handmade like this, and even though it's much stronger than I'm used to, I'm grateful for the extra buzz of caffeine in my system.

Now that we're decently sure we've located the vault, the job today is fairly straightforward. Distract the guard, return to the vault, and find the drone.

We only have to get close enough to lock onto the memory chip with a device R&D sent that should scramble the data inside beyond all hope. If it works. Clint's horror stories of R&D fails like his previous mission quiver are making me a little nervous. And also, there's that little part of this plan that didn't get explained in great detail. Our exit strategy.

The tiny black device disguised as a watch that Clint is currently strapping to his wrist doesn't seem capable of what it's supposed to do, but I guess the design techs probably know what they're making. I grab my knife and sheath, and my dress, and disappear into the bathroom to change.

I bought the dress sort of as a joke, but I have to admit, I actually like the way it looks on me. I don't wear colors often; my usual wardrobe is a practical and signing-friendly array of blacks, navy blues, and shades of grey. Purple brings out the richer gold tones in my normally dishwater-brown hair and makes my eyes look more blue than grey.

 **Purple? Really?** Clint signs when I return to the main room, although there's the hint of a smile on his face.

**I thought I should make an effort to match your style.**

**Coulson sent you the videos, didn't he.** He doesn't even bother to sign it as a question. It's more just a resigned statement of fact.

**It really is a pretty good color on you.**

**Not one more word.**

The unrelenting Mediterranean sun baking down on the outdoor wedding quickly gets old, as does the mellow and to me, untranslateable, voice of the officiating priest, but the heat does give us a good excuse for bowing out during the middle of the ceremony and Clint practically carrying me into the house as I only half-fake a case of heatstroke.

Distracting the guard, a different one this time, is less easy. While he seems perfectly content to let me sit on the steps in the cooler air of the vault area, he doesn't seem to fall for the ruse of being asked to wait upstairs for the arriving paramedics with the excuse that "Pierre" doesn't speak Sicilian enough to explain the situation.

In the end, we're saved by a rather surprising complication. Concetta herself opens the door of the stairway and calls down, and the guard quickly stands up and leaves. Not a bit put off by our unexpected luck, Clint stands up and begins picking the lock with a pin from my hair.

 **What did she tell him?** I remove my shoes to prevent the clicking heel noise and join him.

**That her uncle has insisted he doesn't feel safe around some of the guests and asked for special protection. Her uncle is the second-in-command boss of the mob family.**

**OK. No wonder he didn't refuse.**

**Rule #1 of the mob, always keep your elders happy.** The door opens with a loud creak, and I wince, although Clint, who took out his hearing aids to focus better on the lock work, ignores it. I decide he probably ought to know how much of a racket he's making.

**Clint. Noise.**

**Sorry.**

We step into the cool vault, which smells equally of sawdust and ripening wine, and I scan the racks of dusty bottles until I spot a shelf that is remarkably cleaner than the others. Clint's already moving toward it. I start to take a step, but before I put my foot down there's the distinct sound of another shoe coming to rest on the dirt floor. I spin around to come face to face with the barrel of a small snub-nosed handgun.


	11. Chapter 11

The gun in itself is enough to freeze me to my place, but it's the person holding it that really causes me to gasp in shock. Brown eyes that are no longer simply warm but actually blazing like fire, the voluminous snowy train of a wedding gown thrown carelessly over her non-shooting arm. Concetta DeMariannzo.

Clint, totally oblivious, is pulling the rack of bottles away from the wall, to reveal a small, sleek silver cylinder that must be the housing of the drone. He turns around to sign to me and his hands drop halfway through **Success** as he notices Concetta.

She makes a sideways motion with her gun, pointing Clint over to my direction, and I know I should go for it in that split second she's distracted but _dang it I can't because if she fires it could ricochet six ways from Sunday on all this stone and Clint's too close to the path_.

"He _is_ deaf. So the rumors about S.H.I.E.L.D.'s little Hawk were true. How perfectly fascinating. And you, I suppose, are the interpreter." Concetta's voice is heated with passion as Clint steps up beside me. I feel his hand slide down my leg and I want to slap him and remind him that _this is SO not the time_ but then I realize he's going for the knife I've got there and I relax. A little.

Concetta smiles, a nearly genuine looking expression that is just plain terrifying now.

Okay, she fooled me but good. Of the DiMariannzo siblings, she's probably the more dangerous. She can make you believe she's a naïve, gentle woman until it's time to make her move.

"Did you really believe that Federico could be the mastermind of such grand ambitions? He sees no further than his own pocketbook and the next beautiful woman. No, the family will accept him as one of them, but they do not realize that he takes every order from me. They scorned a woman's leadership; they will come to feel it at last in the end."

"I knew you were not who you claimed to be the moment you stepped out of your car, and I do not have my connections for nothing. By the time you attempted to fool my guard last night, I knew who you were, _Clint Barton,_ although the woman, she is a ghost to my men. But I was curious, so I allowed the little charade to go on, and even assisted you a bit. I am a gambling woman, and I wanted to know if you and your interest in my work were worth something to me. As it turns out, you and the files together will make a fine gift to the Family, and perhaps allow me to take credit in my own right now."

"So you're going to hand us over to your uncle and his goons in exchange for becoming the new boss?" Clint is slowly sliding my dress up so he can get at the knife handle and it tickles and I'm incongruously trying not to laugh right now, and the tension isn't helping my nerves.

"Not both of you. I have no use for the interpreter. I had first assumed she was an agent, but her complete lack of any field skill is appallingly apparent." _OK, now I'm royally mad_. And then I realize the exact implications of that statement, in the split second before there's the crack of gunfire.

And then the world becomes a blur of white and charcoal and red, and I'm watching dizzily from the ground while wishing the world would stop spinning. I push myself slowly upright just in time to see Concetta aiming her gun at Clint, who is leaned back against one of the wine barrels with his right sleeve stained burgundy from shoulder to elbow, and in a moment of clarity, I do the only thing that occurs to me. I grab one of the bottles from the shelf behind me and smash it down on Concetta's hand like a gunslinger in an old Western bar brawl.

It works; Concetta shrieks ear-splittingly at the sudden pain and drops the gun. I snatch it and aim it at her, but now I'm not sure which her because I'm seeing two of everything. And then a pair of strong hands try to take the gun away from me and I flail out and hit blindly before I realize it's Clint.

 **Take the watch, go over to the drone, set it on top and press in the side button,** he signs one-handed, never taking his eyes off Concetta, who is glaring daggers at us, and bleeding scarlet onto the pristine shoulder of her dress where Clint must have hit her with my knife.

My vision is starting to clear up, although several fireflies are sparking around the edges, so I do as Clint instructs. There's a pitchy whine and then nothing.

 **OK, time to go**. Clint spins around and his strike, using the handle of the gun, causes Concetta to collapse in a boneless heap on the floor. He grabs my hand and we dash up the steps.

Outside, the party is still going in full swing, and Clint pulls me tight to him to hide the stains on his sleeve as we slow to a carefree walk. Apparently the depth of the cellar rendered all the noise basically unnoticed, and Concetta's desperate bid for recognition made her decide to take us on alone, without the backup of any of the goon squad.

We make it to our guesthouse room undisturbed, and stop just long enough to grab our weapons packs from the suitcases before scaling down the back wall of the building on a trellis, clambering over the wall, and then strolling off in the direction of the main town as if a man in a bloodied jacket and a shoeless girl carrying a bag of knives are just the typical Sicilian couple.

**We need to find a safe meeting point where I can tell Michelina to come pick us up. She's gonna be mad we lost the car.**

**Actually, shouldn't we be looking for a hospital? You need to get that arm taken care of.**

He looks down as if he'd managed to forget all about it. **Aww, jacket. Concetta missed, she just hit one of the casks and when I backed into it, it stained my entire sleeve. And I just bought this suit, too.**

I can't help it, I start laughing. So hard I think I might pass out. **I thought you were bleeding to death you idiot, why didn't you tell me sooner? Wine cask indeed.**

**Didn't have time.**

**So how are we going to find the safe house?**

**Start looking for a building with the number 47 on it somewhere. Street address, sale prices, anything.**

**The bar Coulson picked me up at was Pier 47. Is that one of the universal codes for safe points?**

**In countries that use the Arabic numeral system, yes.**

Finally, Clint spots a pottery shop offering handcrafted vases at a discount price of 47 euros. We enter and Clint exchanges a series of complicated passphrases in Sicilian with the owner, he uses the wall telephone to dial up Michelina. From the sound of angry shouting on the other end when he tells her about the car, it seems he was right about her reaction.

When Michelina drives up in yet another plain brown vehicle, she doesn't even get out of the car before she launches into an angry tirade of mixed Sicilian and English, waving her hands around nearly as much as I do when I'm trying to explain things to people who don't understand sign language.

Fortunately, I'm used to quickly dodging fast-moving hands, and so I'm able to avoid several potentially painful accidental flails as Michelina reams Clint out for losing what is apparently the third vehicle she's loaned him. And I thought the Sicilian mob was scary. Even Concetta has nothing on this girl.

Finally, Michelina calms down enough to drive us back to the safehouse, although it's in near total silence except for random explosions of what I can only assume are Sicilian curses. We retrieve our packs and then Michelina, only too anxious to be rid of us, drives us to the Quinjet where the pilot, who wasn't expecting us until tomorrow, is currently sharing a picnic lunch with a slender dark-haired girl who looks so much like Michelina I assume it must be her sister.

I decide I'm correct when Michelina shouts at her that this isn't the place to get a boyfriend and she's forgotten to file Agent DiAgostino's mission reports properly again does she want to get them fired, and the girl leaps up like a spooked deer and bolts in the direction of the house.

Almost as mortified as the girl, our pilot has us off the ground and away from the tiny but intimidating and still wildly gesticulating figure of Michelina before I really have time to process what's happening.

Clint and I flop down on seats in the passenger bay, wrung out and finally allowing the exhaustion to overtake the adrenaline.

**That was kind of fun. But I thought that girl was going to kill you.**

**Mickey's not so bad if you don't make her mad** , Clint grins, **but she's a holy terror when she's upset. I like her.**

**You would. At least she's not screaming at us anymore. I'm really tired of being yelled at.**

**Coulson's gonna be mad too, you know. I guess Sicily** ** _is_** **going to be one of the places I can't go back to again, and after all his hard work too. Should totally have just done a night infil**.

 **Awww, no**. It seems the right time for Clint's habitual reaction to all things gone wrong. I lean my head back and sigh. Well, we still have a few hours flight time before we have to deal with the Wrath of Coulson. Maybe I can still get some sleep.


	12. Chapter 12

"I sent you in undercover for one reason. One. Reason." Coulson's voice doesn't lose its calm tone, but that calmness takes on the terrifying stillness of a cat readying itself to pounce.

His anger doesn't manifest itself like mine, when I used to have to go run or punch the training bags for hours after Clint made me feel like an idiot in training. His is the more subtle anger that hides and then pops up when you think everything has blown over, in random passive-aggressive ways. I hope the next mission won't be his idea of punishment.

"How on earth was I supposed to know it was going to be the girl the whole time? Or that she'd be a freaking genius at the whole innocent act?" Clint seems to think arguing with Phil is going to be a good idea. I've known the agent for less time, and I can already see that standing quietly and saying nothing is going to get me off the hook faster. But Clint just can't help being his typical contrary self.

Phil, whose face is turning redder and redder as Clint goes on about bad intel and administrative screw-ups, turns to me. "McBride, you're free to go. See if you can make any sense out of this disaster in your mission report. I want that document on my desk by oh-nine-hundred tomorrow, no excuses."

"Yes sir."

"Wait, why does she get to go?" Clint asks, sounding rather amusingly whiny about it.

"Because she has sense enough not to contradict me at every word and try to shift the blame. It's not administration's fault that they don't know everything. They have a great deal of work to do, especially when it comes to managing agents like you. So if you want better intel this time, I suggest that you make their job a little easier right now and actually fill out that pile of 14-A-96 forms that's been growing on your desk since Panama." I see Coulson's face take on what passes for, with him, a wry grin of amusement.

"Aw, Phil, you told me you took care of those."

"I have enough to do getting the Sicilian mob out of our hair; Agent SantaClara informed me that she is not happy about being left to deal with the Sicily situation on her own. Also, she seems to be of the impression that we owe her damages for a car."

"The car is still in one piece," Clint insists.

"The last time you used that excuse on her, the vehicle was at the bottom of the Mediterranean. In one piece, yes. Usable, no."

"It's on dry land this time. And I didn't even scratch it, I swear."

"Oh really? Well, then, why is she so upset?"

"We mighta kinda left it at the compound when we escaped."

"I can see why her car being stuck behind locked gates and a dozen mob goons with semiautomatics would tend to make her a little unhappy."

"Oh, please, she could take them all out and get her car back on her own, with one hand tied behind her back."

"I'll tell her you said that. I'm sure she'll appreciate your confidence in her abilities, and also be more than happy to demonstrate a few of her more painfully effective moves." Coulson looks over and sees me still loitering in the doorway. "Well, what are you still here for? I expect that mission report to be at least three detailed pages. Get working." I bolt.

Finding my room here has me running down three blind corridors, since our rendezvous with Coulson was at the New York headquarters of S.H.I.E.L.D. rather than the Las Cruces facility. Now that my training is complete, I'm being moved closer to Clint's actual residence so he can return home. I'm hoping I'll be allowed to find my own residence off base as well, so I can move all my stuff out of my Portland apartment before my landlord decides I'm dead and holds an estate sale.

When I turn in my mission report the next morning, a full four pages when you count my firmly worded request that Clint and I never pose as a couple again due to lodging…difficulties, Coulson hands me a file to attach to it, and I skim the pages before adding it to the stack.

As it turns out, Concetta DiMariannzo has been planning her rise to power for years, undetected, and only careful re-analysis of her past activity uncovered the connections. Even her marriage, to Alfonso Caccone, was simply to ensure that a large and influential sector of the mob family, which had been considering splitting away would remain loyal.

Reading this, I frown. Concetta's kindly demeanor hides a cunning and deliberate personality. Clint and I have made a powerful enemy.

Seeing my concerned look, Coulson comments, "Agent SantaClara informs me that she believes she has the situation in hand. As a matter of fact, she seemed quite enthusiastic about matching wits with the Family. She certainly is one of a kind." He pauses, and I wonder if he trained her, from the look of mixed pride and amusement in his eyes.

I hand him back the files and wander off to find Clint, who is, for once, in the tiny office that is nominally his. It's the first time I've ever seen him in there, and judging by the layer of dust and grime covering everything but a small swath of the desk and the pile of papers he's currently supposed to be working on, I wonder how many times he even remembers the place exists.

He's not actually doing any of the paperwork, but throwing pens at the wall, where a single sheet of the form is pinned up, with a rather alarming force and accuracy. There are already at least a dozen forming a ring around the center of the paper.

 **I'm bored out of my mind here, want to do something fun?** He signs when he sees me.

**Doing the paperwork so Coulson doesn't decide to punish us with a suicide mission sounds kind of fun to me.**

**Stop being sarcastic, it doesn't suit you.**

**I'm not being sarcastic. Why do you enjoy winding him up?**

**Because he'll never actually get really angry.**

**He looked angry yesterday.** I swipe a corner of the desk clean and perch there, swinging my legs.

 **I've seen people angry. Coulson was just mildly irritated.** I watch some kind of shadow flit across his face before the next pen flies to bury itself twice as deep in the center of the ring he'd formed.

**Since we're already in New York I thought I'd take you to meet Katie.**

Katie, I guess, must be Kate Bishop, who according to the files I read shares both her codename and her crazy-good archery talent with her mentor. I wouldn't mind getting out and seeing the city a little, and meeting this friend of Clint's, but I'm still not confident in my grasp of the rules surrounding probationary agents.

**I'm not even sure I'm allowed to leave the base without permission.**

**Don't worry, I'll say Kate needed us and I needed my interpreter along. It's probably even true, Lucky's probably giving her a hard time.**

**Lucky?** I remember that name vaguely from the phone conversation. And then I remember, Clint said he had a dog.

**Pizza dog. You'll like him too. Come on, let's go before Coulson decides to come back here and see if I'm actually working.**

We make it out of the building and hail a cab in what must be record time for a New York morning, and before long we're parking in front of a rambling brick apartment that's seen better days, in the middle of Bedford-Stuyvesant.

**Already told Kate we were coming, so she'll have brought Lucky back over. This is my place, not hers.**

**When did you call her?**

**This morning, before you showed up.**

**You just assumed I'd come?**

**Well, wasn't I right?**

The building looks just as shabby inside as out, but Clint seems rather ridiculously proud of it, possibly because he's now the official legal owner. He keeps pointing out various improvements as we climb the stairs.

We reach the top floor and Clint pulls on one of the doors. When it doesn't open, he frowns, knocks, and shouts, "Hey Katie, it's me, open up." A slender, black-haired girl in a purple crop top and jeans opens it with an angry glare.

"You're a dead man, Clint Barton," she snaps angrily, and before I know it there's a bow leveled at us.


	13. Chapter 13

"Hey, Katie, now what did I do?" Clint has his hands up, but more jokingly than as if he's actually intimidated.

"You. Gave. Every. Single. One. Of. Your. Residents. My. Phone. Number." Kate enunciates each word very clearly, I assume so that Clint can understand her without her having to lower her bow to sign. She's ignoring the snuffling doggy sounds and the slobbery canine muzzle trying to squirm through the crack in the door by her legs.

"I must have gotten ten calls in the last three days. Tito alone asked five times if I could get the water heater repaired. Once at three a.m. I don't know if the man ever sleeps. Do you know how much repair companies charge, Clint? Probably not, because the man _I_ had to call to come fix the stupid thing said it was being coaxed along on duct tape and a prayer."

"It worked, though."

"And Mrs. Maguire's sink drain plugged, and do you have any idea how gross it is to pull chunks of spoiled baby food out of those pipes? And Bruno locked himself out Saturday night and was so drunk he passed out in the hall by the time I showed up, and then tried to kiss me when I woke him up. Never again, Barton. This is your building, not mine." Kate has, however, by this time lowered her bow, and looks less furious. Then she catches sight of me. "Not AGAIN, Clint." She sounds utterly resigned in an odd way. "Did you learn nothing from the Penny fiasco?"

"She's not my girlfriend, she's my interpreter."

"Oh, S.H.I.E.L.D. just happened to assign you some random hot chick to follow you around everywhere?" _Didn't think I_ was _a hot chick, but I'll take that as a compliment. Provided she doesn't shoot me._

"I told you they were giving me a mission partner, Katie." And then Clint is cut off by about seventy pounds of exuberant one-eyed mutt dog that throws itself at him the second the door is open wide enough.

"Hey, who's a good boy? You been good for Katie? I hope you didn't chew up her good shoes again, she hates that you know. C'mere." Clint ruffles the dog's shaggy fur, ignoring the rest of us completely. Lucky, however, is all curiosity when it comes to me. He sniffs my outstretched hand and then plants his paws on my chest, trying to lick my face. I almost fall over backward from the unexpected assault.

"Lucky, down boy. This is Henley. Be nice, okay? You want her to like you, stop scaring her."

"I think he likes you," Kate grins. "If the dog likes you, it's all good in my book."

"Well, I like him." I can feel the goofy grin I get around animals starting. I haven't had a dog since I was sixteen, but I still love them.

We all crowd through the door into the apartment, and it's not much different than I would have expected from Clint. Stained coffee cups on the counter, arrows lying around randomly on every available surface, and two targets against the far wall by the window.

 **Home sweet home.** Clint searches through a pile of envelopes on the desk until he comes up with a purple hearing aid. "Ha, knew I had a backup here somewhere."

I attempt to move several odd-looking arrows to sit down on a chair but Kate grabs my hand so hard I yelp. "Don't touch those, he hasn't gotten around to labeling the darn things yet but I think those are the malfunctioning putty ones. And I'm not cleaning up that mess."

I choose a chair that is conveniently occupied only by three somewhat less volatile net arrows, and sit down to watch Kate and Clint each grab their bows and start shooting. Lucky wanders over and looks at me with one sad eye, laying a paw in my lap and whining.

"Sorry, buddy, I haven't got any food."

"There's pizza in the fridge," Clint calls, and I jerk a little before realizing that _yes he has his hearing aids in so he can hear me talking._

"Are you kidding? You put that in there weeks ago. Before you left for Lagos. I threw it out when I picked Lucky up because I was afraid you'd try and eat it when you came back."

"Oh. Right. That was a while ago."

"Almost two months, dummy. There are dog biscuits in a box in the third cupboard to the right," Kate says before loosing another perfectly aimed shot.

I grab a biscuit for Lucky, who turns into a hyper puppy as soon as he sees the box. When he rolls over and waves his paws in the air, I start petting him and lose track of the time until I see feet stop next to us.

"C'mon, they're grilling on the roof again this evening." Kate heads down the hall for a door marked "Roof Access, Danger, Do Not Enter", pushes it open, and steps out.

"One of the guys who lived here just decided to cook up there one night, and now everybody in the building just has potluck night on the roof." Clint sounds a bit sad. "Grills, the guy who started it, he died not too long ago. When the tracksuit Russian Mafia were trying to take the building."

"I'm sorry."

"You coming or not?" Kate calls down.

"Coming." We step out the door and onto the flat, graveled roof, where there's a strong breeze that whips my hair all over my face. In a movie, it would be elegant. In real life, it just plain sucks.

I spit out a chunk of my hair and notice that the breeze carries the smell of slightly charred meat, reminding my stomach that I haven't eaten since breakfast. Kate's already piling relish and mustard on a hot dog, talking to the elderly man standing over the grill.

After Clint and I get our food, he leads me around the roof, introducing me to the various people. Deke, an architect, Tito, a novelist who has yet to actually be in print, Cathy Maguire, a young mother, and Bruno Hauser, new to the city and still job hunting.

"Wish Aimee had stuck around, but she said she was getting out of the city and she meant it I guess," Clint said. "You would have liked her. She was a spunky kid. Hope she and Lou are ok down in Philly."

I quickly discover that while quirky, the residents of Clint's apartment building are some of the most interesting, _realest_ , people I've ever met. I'm sorry to leave when Clint points out that if we want to avoid me getting in trouble we should probably head back to the base now.

Unfortunately, New York traffic has decided to show us its finest side this evening, and our cab waits in a sea of horns for a grand total of thirty-eight minutes before Clint decides we'll be better off walking.

We no sooner step in the doors than Coulson is waiting for us with a frown. "Where were you?"

"Kate needed our help; there were swarms of angry mutant rats attacking all over Brooklyn, you had to have heard about it. It must be all over the news…"

"Don't give me that, she called me and told me you were showing up for the dog."

"Then why'd you ask where we were?"

"It's always interesting to see what lie you'll come up with next. This one just earned you that backlog of ZHF-093-W forms Fury's been hounding me about. I need those and the ones you were _supposed_ to be doing today finished by tomorrow noon, because then you and Romanoff and McBride are on a flight to Manila."


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mini crossover time. Watched the Bourne Legacy while working on this story and decided it could tie in pretty well if I modified a few details and some playing with the dates...

_Okay, this-this looks bad._

I'm currently fighting off what might be a concussion, wishing the feeling would come back in my hands where they're cuffed over my head to the wall because _dang it I kind of need them for my job_ , and wondering how we ever got into this mess in the first place. I'm pretty sure Clint is too, because he's taking a pretty nasty beating from a couple of creepy goons, and a minute ago they injected him with something, which can't be good. Nat needs to hurry the heck up with her end of this plan.

S.H.I.E.L.D. assured us we were perfect for this mission. Apparently to them, _perfect_ means that Clint strongly resembles an asset these creeps lost over a year ago and would very much like to get back, and also get as much information from as possible before getting rid of said kink in their plans. Which means that we're the decoys while Nat breaks into the place and gets what we actually came for in the first place. We aren't even on comms with her because a wire would definitely be noticed, so I have no way of knowing how close rescue is. I don't think I like this plan at all.

Apparently this particular group, a formerly CIA-backed program called Outcome, was bent on recreating the Captain America super-soldier program, which historically just hasn't ended well for anyone involved. Their early efforts were limited because they couldn't make the physical and mental enhancements permanent, but they had been at least on the verge of a breakthrough when their program was scrapped after a massive intel leak brought their secrets and experiments to light. Rumor has it that they were actually successful in creating at least one super soldier with a virus-aided gene recoding. Their currently missing agent, Aaron Cross.

A shortish guy with a thin face and cold eyes is pacing the room like a caged tiger, watching Clint the whole time. According to the dossier Coulson gave us before sending us off, with a grim look that said he didn't like the plan any more than we do, this is the head of the super-soldier program, Rick Byer. And he's out for blood, because Cross's existence has been a thorn in his side and prevented him from moving forward with the new stages of his program.

The CIA shut down the still running LARX program, an 'improved' version of Outcome that was still then kept secret, because of the sloppy cleanup when the Outcome project was scrapped. Apparently their definition of a bad cleanup means that Byer failed to eliminate every single agent in the program. Byer, frustrated by his superiors' refusal to continue his work, went rogue and began restarting the program from scratch, with no allegiance to anyone but himself. When the CIA realized what kind of a disaster they'd created, they came to S.H.I.E.L.D. asking for their assistance.

I don't like being the cleanup for an agency that doesn't care what it's people are doing until they stop working in the agency's best interests, and I like it even less when it involves a plan like this.

Byer stops pacing and stands in front of Clint, and even in the harsh fluorescent bluish light of the underground storage area we're being held in, I can see that Clint's normally sharp eyes look a bit out of focus. Whatever they gave him must be starting to kick in.

"Nice to see you again, Aaron. Do you have any idea how much trouble you and that doctor friend of yours have given me?"

"No' really." Clint's voice is too thick and slurred, and I'm not sure if it's from the drug or because before we started he took his hearing aid out because Cross wouldn't have it and it would be a dead giveaway that he's been lying.

"You will when I make you pay for it. You, and Dr. Shearing when I find wherever you've hidden her. Because you'll tell me where she is, soon enough." The pleasure Byer takes in that threat makes my blood freeze, even though this room is warm and steamy with the Phillipine heat.

Unfortunately, he picks that moment to turn his attention to me, and I shudder involuntarily. Byer seems to size me up, then shakes his head.

"She's not the doctor. So who is she?"

His back is to Clint, who therefore can't read his lips, doesn't know what he's saying, and stays silent. _Dang I wish I could feel my hands right now because I could let him know he should have heard that._

When he doesn't get an answer, Byer rounds on Clint, hitting him so hard that I flinch again. "I said, who is she?"

Clint is staring at the man, and I guess he's having a harder time seeing now because I can tell he's working insanely hard to read Byer's lips and understand what he's asking. Unfortunately, Byer notices it too.

"You're reading my lips."

Clint nods slowly, and for a moment I can't understand why, and then I realize that whatever drug they gave him must be some form of truth serum. _Well, we're screwed now. Nat where the heck are you?_

"Cross wasn't deaf. Who are you?"

 **Hen, tell them it was the serum, that this Doctor Shearing messed it up. Maybe he'll buy it, the stuff was made to rewire genetics.** Clint may be half out of it, but his signing is still understandable.

"He says when Shearing gave him the virus she made a mistake. It made the enhancement permanent but she got one gene wrong and it zapped his hearing."

"Well, then, so the invincible soldier isn't so perfect after all." Byer grins. "So she's an interpreter, eh? Well, then maybe she'd like to tell you how you're going to die."

**Not planning on doing that anytime soon you creep. We're going to get out of here and then burn this place to the ground.**

I feel like it might be a bad idea, but I state Clint's words exactly as he meant them. With a "Preferably with you inside it" tacked onto the end that I can see Clint was able to lip-read because he gives me a goofy grin.

The soulless look in Byer's eyes shakes me to my core when he spins back to me. "Tell him even if he does manage it, he's still a dead man. That's more than a truth serum; it's the most recent upgrade of our carrier virus. Without, of course, any of the enhancements factored in. And in its raw form, it's 100% effective in eliminating any uncooperative asset."

_Great. Now not only are we trapped in here, Clint's got some freaking killer mutant mystery flu._

I don't have time to explain a thing because there's a flash of scarlet and then Byer drops, with Nat taking him down like a pile driver from a ceiling vent so small I wonder how she even managed to fit. Two throwing stars and a well-placed kick later, the three muscle goons are out for the count as well.

"Come on, we need to get out right now," Nat says, freeing me from my cuffs with a single quick move.

"No joke Sherlock."

"It's a bit more important now. I discovered the interesting little fact that Byer has an outside partner, who's due to inspect the facility tonight. I'd rather we were long gone when he shows up to discover that the project is toast. Wouldn't want to be Byer when he does."

"When did you figure that out?"

Clint decides to enter the conversation, even though he's so out of it he looks like he's going to pass out at any second. **Nat has the bad habit of looking at all the records whenever she's sent on a mission to collect or destroy. She just wants to know what's in them, confirm she's doing the right thing, holdover from her KGB days. It's freaking annoying though, that's why she took so long to get here.**

Nat, over the course of our espionage lessons, informed me that she had begun teaching herself ASL after Clint went deaf, and I was more than happy to practice with her **.** She's an incredibly fast learner, and I can tell from her expression that she got the gist of that sentence. **"** Did they give him something? Because if he's not drugged up right now I'm gonna kill him for that."

"Oh, no, he's out of it. And Byer told me that he's going to die. You didn't happen to, in all those records, stumble across an antidote to their carrier virus, by chance?"

"Had a feeling this might come in handy." Nat pulls a vial from a pocket I didn't know her catsuit had and then shoves it back, and helps Clint to his feet. He stumbles, unable to support his own weight, and I ignore the prickling all through my hands and wrists and help her as we struggle through the maze of corridors.

**You were supposed to destroy the samples, not steal them.**

"I've got the closest thing to a breakthrough they've had since 1943. S.H.I.E.L.D. would sell their soul for this. I plan to hang onto it as a bargaining chip if I ever need one." I can tell she's used to being a freelancer and that she's had bad experiences with the government agencies who once controlled her. She trusts very few people, and she always has an escape plan.

"So this is the virus not the cure? How is that going to help us?" I'm not really following her mental process, but that could be the case of heat exhaustion I'm pretty sure I'm developing.

"I know someone who can reverse-engineer it. I've asked him for help before. Remember Myanmar in '02?" She asks Clint, who nods exaggeratedly, then coughs.

"We better hurry," I gasp, out of breath from the effort of supporting Clint-who is no lightweight-and the humid oppressiveness of the air. We stumble out a door into the hum of a factory that I vaguely remember from coming back. I have just enough energy to be thankful that _hey the buzzing in my head seems to have cleared up,_ and then we're out on the even more humid street, just as nightfall begins over the crowded noisy city.

"We need to find a place to lay low while I get in touch with my contact," Nat says, stopping outside of a crappy-looking hotel. We stumble into the foyer and she asks the desk clerk, in what I assume is flawless Filipino because I don't understand a word of it, for a room.

I'm barely managing to hold Clint upright on my own, because in addition to the coughing, which is continuing almost nonstop, he's developed an uncontrollable tremor. I'm grateful when Nat returns with the key.

"I got us first floor thank goodness, told the clerk that he was drunk and we were the…entertainment…for the night."

"Oh, thanks a lot. I thought pretending to be his wife was bad, now I'm a hooker?"

"It's the most consistently believable cover for these situations." I have to admit, we do probably look a little bit strange, since both Nat is wearing tight black field gear and I've shed my jacket and torn my skirt in a long slit up one leg to move faster.

We barely make it to the room before Clint makes a muffled yelp and winces, nearly doubling over as a muscle spasm works through him. Nat and I lay him down as carefully as we can on the bed, and I curse the lack of air conditioning because even though we're all sweating like horses I can tell that Clint has a steadily climbing fever. The tiny little fan in the corner, running at full speed, is barely doing a bit of good, it's getting about three revolutions per minute and just pushing the muggy air around.

"If I'm not back in an hour get out of here and keep moving," Nat says, and then disappears out the half-open window. I run water into a chipped bowl I find by the rusty tap, tear a jagged scrap off my skirt, and sit down next to Clint, trying to wipe away the worst of the sweat and hoping Nat gets back soon.

_Yeah, this definitely looks bad._


	15. Chapter 15

I internally curse the fact that Nat and Clint never go into ops with any extraction plan. It makes them flexible, but it also makes bad situations like this worse. We can't call for anyone to come pull us out, even, because our mission's success relied on us not having any gear on us that could be found or identified.

I wonder for probably the fiftieth time who Natasha could possibly be meeting here in Manila who could help. This person must be brilliant, with a state-of-the-art lab, and someone Nat actually trusts. Which means she'll never, ever tell me who it is. I doubt even Clint knows.

He's slipping further and further into a sort of almost delirious state, tossing and muttering as his fever spikes. I reach out to put a hand on his shoulder in comfort when he makes a sound that sounds disconcertingly like a whimper of pain. It isn't like Clint to show his pain, and it makes me a little nervous to see his confident, almost carefree attitude drop. I don't know if I'm prepared to deal with the emotional baggage I know he carries, if his defenses drop that far.

**You're kind of cute when you're worried.**

I jerk, startled by his fumbling signing. And by what he's saying. He must really be out of it. But if I can keep him communicating and aware, he might stand a better chance. So I simply sign a reply just like I would if he weren't sick and possibly dying.

**You think I'm cute?**

**Yeah. You've got nice eyes. You should wear more purple and blue, it makes them look better. You wear too much dark stuff.**

**Like I'd take fashion advice from a guy who thinks coffee is a necessary accessory.**

Clint makes a response I can't understand, and then coughs violently, curling in on himself. I press a hand to his back in support until he stops, unable to do anything more to help. It almost physically hurts to be unable to do any more.

 **Thank you.** Clint looks at me wearily, but with a small smile. **I'm glad you're here. You're a good partner.**

**I thought you hated me at first, you know.**

**Never hated you. Just hated the idea of why you were there.** _Geez, what did they give him because he must be high as a kite to admit that._

I have a much more pressing worry when Clint's next round of violent coughing leaves flecks of blood on his lips. His fever is rising so fast that he's stopped sweating, a very bad sign. I reach over for the water bowl and rag, and run the damp cloth over his face and neck again.

The peculiarly-cadenced knock on the door makes me jump and slosh half the water across the bed. When my brain catches up with my hearing, I realize it's Nat's signal and rush to open the door.

Her frown tells me a great deal before her words come. "He needs a day. This is a particularly rare and complicated strain and he needs time to analyze it."

"I don't think Clint has a day. He's burning up and he's coughing blood now."

"We may just have to hope that he's strong enough to pull through."

"Nat, this virus can kill men enhanced by Byer's serum. How does he stand a chance?"

Natasha's lips are a tight line of resigned seriousness. "He will or he won't. It's all up to him now."

A small sound from Clint's direction catches both of us, and I turn back to him, laying my hand back on his arm. The action seems to only agitate him futher.

"Hen…" Nat is cut off by an anguished yell from Clint.

"No! Barney! Please, make him stop! Please!" Clint's raw voice breaks, and then his hand latches onto my arm faster than I can process, and he's twisting it hard. _He's going to break my arm._ I can't get free, even ill he's too strong. And then, just as I can feel the stress on my bone become unbearable, I see another hand grip Clint's and wrench him off me.

"Thanks, Nat." I rub my incredibly sore arm and shake it, fingers tingling and muscles burning when I try to form signs. _Well, now I'm kinda useless. Guess it's one handed signs and fingerspelling now._ "What the heck was that?"

"You didn't know it was a mistake. You put your hand in the same spot where he was stabbed by Duquesne, and in his mind, you were his old mentor. I made the same mistake once when he was delirious from an infection. He snapped a bone in my hand and then felt terrible about when he woke up. He loses all sense of reality when those things happen;it's not his fault but you need to be careful."

 **I hate windows.** Clint is signing again.

 **Why? Because you crash through them all the time?** Nat asks.

**No. I don't like windows because they lie.**

I'm very confused now, but curious too. **They lie?**

**Yes. When you walk past them at night and there's lights inside and families eating dinner, and they look happy and warm and safe, and the windows tell me that I'm close enough to be part of it. But it's not true. I kept hoping if I stood in front of the windows they'd look out and see me and want me to come live with them. But I was lying to myself. No one wants a kid who's just an orphan and a carnie and a killer.**

I feel my heart shatter at this. I knew Clint's story, but I never really understood the pain he carries until now. Seeing the hopelessness of his childhood through his own eyes, the desperate longing and disappointment, and then the bitter resignation to his fate. To never having the family and love he so desperately wanted. I can feel water running down my cheeks that has nothing to do with the heat.

Nat looks as truly emotional as I've ever seen her, which basically just means that her hand is white-knuckled on her favorite knife.

And then Clint gasps and goes limp. I rush to his side and drop to my knees and touch his shoulder nervously, half afraid of finding that he's not breathing. I almost sob with relief at the warm ghost of breath on my arm.

"Oh, no. No, no no. Please, Clint, wake up." I know he can't hear me but I just have to be talking to reassure myself or I'll scream and I cannot afford to lose my cool now. I shake his shoulder, still even now, in my panic, careful to avoid his old stab wound. He doesn't even move.

"This is the crisis." Nat sounds peculiarly detached. "My contact said with the base strain of this virus, this is typical. He'll either fight his way back or get weaker and weaker until he's gone."

I want to be angry at the way she's acting, but I realize that it's her way of dealing with the pain. Compartmentalize, get the pain out of the way and make sure the mission is complete because that's what Clint would have wanted, what we came to do.

I square my shoulders and look up at her. "How can we help?"

"Keep him as cool as we can. You just stay with him and give him something to come back to. He can't hear you, so keep a touch contact that will ground him to the real world. Keep him from drifting." I hear everything she doesn't say. That she sees herself as a killer, not a healer. That she would not trust herself with his life like this, in this way. And that I am the interpreter. I am the one whose whole job is to get through to him, to communicate.

After Nat and I remove his shirt and jeans, I sit next to Clint, holding one hand and fingerspelling into it over and over. **Please, come back. We need you to. You're strong, I know you are. Just keep fighting. You're too stubborn to let this beat you.**

I lose all consciousness of time. The world narrows to me and Clint, to our intertwined hands, his slack and hot, mine moving furiously, tirelessly, desperately. And then, as my fingers tire and cramp, their movement is arrested completely by a tightening of Clint's grip on me.

I gasp and glance at Nat she's seen it and her tense, stiff posture relaxes. Just a bit, but enough.

I don't know when I fall asleep, but I wake up to sun streaming in the windows and my head pillowed on Clint's thankfully normal-temperature skin. I sit up, my twisted arm stiff and sore.

At my motion, Clint mumbles and his blue eyes open slightly.

**Clint? You ok?**

He studies me blearily for a moment and I repeat the question.

 **Fine, I think. Little fuzzy on what happened, and my head's buzzing, but it's getting better.** He looks down at his bare chest, then back at me and Nat with a grin **. Couldn't resist the opportunity to get me in my underwear, huh?**

 **Shut up. You almost died, stop being an idiot.** The grin on my face must be cancelling out the scolding my words are supposed to give. I'm just glad to see he's still, well, Clint. Even if he is an annoying goofball.

_Yeah, he's gonna be fine._


	16. Chapter 16

We wait almost two days more for Clint to recover sufficiently to move without becoming exhausted in the first few steps, and Natasha also slips away for another clandestine meeting with her mysterious contact. When she returns, she not only carries a vial of an antidote-for emergencies, she says with an unreadable look-but also the name and location of a barge she's hired for us to slip out on the following morning.

It's difficult getting down to the docks without attracting too much attention, and that of the wrong kind. Nat wasn't kidding when she said we passed as believable prostitutes. I keep getting called and whistled at, and so does she, the entire length of the docks. Nat has her red hair covered with a scarf and we've all changed into clothes she picked up somewhere on her trip, although I'm not too keen on asking where. It's entirely possible she stole them off someone's clothesline. Or pulled them out of a trash bin, not sure which is worse.

I'm more than thankful to reach the ramshackle little barge tied up at the end of the docks, where a slender young Philippine boy is waving at us. I wish it was someplace where I could take a shower and wash three days of sweat and grime off my skin and out of my hair, but right now, just getting away from this city looks pretty great.

"You come back? Where is doctor woman?" the boat captain asks Clint in broken English as soon as we step on board, and I almost start laughing. Nat _would_ hire the boat that Cross and Shearing had used to escape when they were here.

"Long story," Clint mutters when I sign what the man asked, and then sprawls out on the deck and is asleep before the engines growl to life.

I sit in a sheltered part of the deck, out of the merciless sun, and watch the green and grey line of land disappear behind us while the boat threads through a maze of tiny islands jutting from the teal-and-ultramarine water. It's kind of peaceful, even with the engine noise and the lingering tension from our mission. I've ridden a lot of boats before; it was sort of a natural part of growing up in Portland, but I don't think I've ever seen water so beautiful.

Back home, the sky was usually overcast and the water would look dirty green or grey, especially near the city. I trail my hand over the side of the boat and marvel at the warmth; Portland water even in summer was enough to bring a bit of an unpleasant shock if I fell overboard. I reach down into the water and splash some over my arms and face, and it feels wonderful. I'm sure it isn't the cleanest, but after that dive of a hotel and the killer heat, it's amazing.

At some point, I fall asleep under the canopy, and wake up to a sky full of stars sprinkled across the blackness, and the growing lights of a port city, I have no idea where. I practically sleepwalk next to Nat and Clint as we leave the boat and find our way to a safe house where an agent is waiting for us with plans to get us on a flight home the next morning.

I shower there, grateful for the water even though the shower is full of rust and the occasional lizard and spider, and then pass out on a mattress on the floor until morning, when we follow the agent to the plane on a landing strip just outside the town that will take us back home.

I'm fairly sure my mission report this time will give Coulson a headache. I start filling it out on the plane trip, but even so it still takes me a day before I have enough done where I feel that I did the entire disaster justice.

We're all a little the worse for wear from the experience. Nat, although she won't say why, seemed shaken ever since her last meeting with her mystery contact. Something must be brewing in the underground spy community, something she isn't ready yet to share.

Clint, although he recovered from the initial bout of the virus, continues to have minor relapses of the flu for almost a month. Predictably, he insists he's fine to go back to field duty, but when he fails to show up for my training one morning I hop a taxi to his apartment and find him passed out on his couch shaking from a fever and chills, and poor Lucky panicking and scratching at the door trying to find someone to help.

Even with Nat's mystery cure, Clint continues to fight off almost weekly coughs and fevers until finally it seems he's managed to beat the bug off. I haven't found an apartment yet, so I stay in an empty room in Clint's building all this time, so I'm close if he needs me. A few weeks ago I would have been a bit put off by the noisy, smelly part of the city Clint lives in, but after Manila anything is an improvement. Even the baby crying next door can't shake me out of sleeping soundly the first night. I'm actually starting to consider just renting this as my place; it would make sense. It's practical, I tell myself, ignoring the odd feeling in my chest that comes every time I think of living this close to Clint.

I didn't get out of the mess in Manila unscathed either. My arm wasn't just twisted, Clint actually caused a hairline fracture in my radius. I realize it's more than just a sprain when after a week, signing with that hand still sends spikes of pain that make me feel like I may throw up. Fortunately, S.H.I.E.L.D. medical says I don't need a cast, just a wrist and arm brace while the bone heals, since there wasn't a complete break.

I'm still wearing the brace when Clint and I, on the way home for getting some groceries, run into a group of street thugs. I've badgered Clint into letting me buy some food and cook for him while I'm staying to help, since he really doesn't seem to eat when he's home and there was nothing but dog biscuits and coffee in those cupboards.

Clint sees the men before I do, and by the time they get to us he's already taken down two with his arrows. Two more have the misguided idea they can take him, and one comes for me, brandishing a long knife.

He doesn't know that knife fights are my strong suit. When he makes a slash at me I instinctively block it, and his moment of hesitation allows me to grab the blade out of his hand. He steps back a bit, surprised by my resourcefulness, and then, so quickly I don't register the danger until he's already one me, pulls out another blade and lunges.

I'm not even thinking now, just throwing out my arm to protect my neck. And then his blade glances off the metal supports in my wrist brace and while he's readying for another pass I take him down with a well-placed kick.

Clint's handled his two and is just turning to help me when I look up. "Wow, this thing is actually useful," I mutter, looking down at the shredded cloth on my brace. "Maybe I should start wearing something like this all the time."

That comment starts something, because the next day Clint's talking to R&D about getting me a field uniform and before the week is over I have a black tac suit similar to Nat's, with built-in sheathes at the sides for my favorite knives and wrist guards with extra reinforcement.

"With a suit like that, you gotta have a code name now," Clint says when he sees me in it the first time.

"Isn't my com call sign Shadow?" We never really use it, but that's what Coulson had told me I would be called on missions.

"Not cool enough. Pick a good one."

I think, long and hard, about what I really want to be called. Anything I can think of that relates to sign language just sounds corny, and I'm running out of ideas. Then I remember a long time ago, playing with the neighbor kids in the back lot of our subdivision, and being warned by our parents to stay away from the Deadly Nightshade plants that grew back there. I had thought the purple flowers and shiny dark berries were lovely, and also that the name was cool.

"Nightshade. That's what I want to be called. I know it's kind of misleading since I'm not very deadly but it sounds kind of awesome."

"I like that." Clint nods. "Nightshade. Got a good ring to it for an agent."

When Coulson hears about it I can tell he's trying not to laugh, and I can see why. I'm the least deadly member of the team I'm with, but I have a name that seems to suggest I'm pretty badass. Well, maybe it will be intimidating.

I didn't know that deciding on a code name meant my uniform was going to get modified as well. When I actually pick it up from final work at R&D, it's not plain black anymore, but a sort of glossy purple-black, with dark navy accent stripes on the arms, legs, and around the high neck. The colors are not too flashy to interfere with my signing, but they're just distinctive enough that I know Clint's sharp eyes will be able to pick me out of even the darkest places on a mission. Perfect.

During the few weeks we've spent in close proximity, with Clint fighting off the last of the killer flu, he and I have become much more comfortable with each other. His sometimes less-than-tasteful joking and his carelessness aren't quite so annoying now, and I've begun to actually enjoy wondering just what he's going to get himself into next. Like the time he got bored sitting around home and decided to sort through all his trick arrows, or the time "helping" Kate involved giving her an untested arrow that instead of placing a tracker on her mark landed him in the hospital with a severe concussion.

Clint is much more relaxed with me now too, and we mostly converse in ASL when it's just the two of us. Clint's stories of past missions, at least ones that aren't classified above my level, are so much better when told in hand gestures and facial expressions than in plain voice, and a part of me is grateful that this is something that is unique to Clint and me. Even with Nat, who knows a decent amount of sign language now, he uses spoken English unless absolutely necessary. Sign language is something that Clint and I have that is special. Just for the two of us, a way of pulling away from the rest of the world and just understanding each other better.

I feel a lot less awkward spending time one on one with Clint now, and less like I'm liable to fall head over heels for him accidentally and impulsively do something that I will really regret. It's past the teenage infatuation stage, or at least I hope it is, and more the good friends who work together a lot and _he just happens to be attractive but I am not even going to think about that kind of relationship because it won't work_. If I keep telling myself that it has to eventually become the truth, right?

It helps that Clint never seems to treat me as more than just a good friend and colleague. I've discovered that his joking from the time we posed as a married couple is just kind of natural to him, it wasn't specifically that he was trying to make me uncomfortable. He's just awkward about situations like that and joking is how he eases the tension. Plus, he tends to be a terrible flirt with a lot of people, even Bobbi still, so that makes me feel better about it.

All of which does not prepare me for the day he knocks on my door, in a purple bullseye t-shirt and jeans, not tac gear for a mission, and asks me, completely seriously, "Want to go to the circus with me?"


	17. Chapter 17

"I know you read the file. But you can't really know where I came from until you see it for yourself."

Clint brakes the car in front of the gates of a cheerfully noisy, colorful carnival. I can smell corndogs, pulled pork, and fried bread smells. I never went to carnivals as a kid; Mom was afraid I'd get kidnapped or something at one.

I think some of her nervousness has rubbed onto me, because I instinctively readjust my purse strap as we walk up to the gates. Clint, being his usual observant self, notices.

"Don't trust carnies, huh?"

I decide he'll appreciate my dry humor. "Actually, after meeting you, no."

"Smart girl," Clint chuckles, and then slaps my hand when I try to pay for my own ticket. "Nah, I got it. I can write it up as a work related expense. Part of training you."

We walk in, and the varied music from all the rides and attractions is overwhelming without the fence to block some of the sound. I wonder if it's bothering Clint with his over-sensitive aids, and I grin to myself when I see him take them out subtly.

We pass three or four different rides before I feel Clint grabbing my hand, and before I really have time to protest we're getting into some crazy swinging whirling thing that I'm sure is going to make me puke my guts out.

**Look at something in the distance. That's the trick to these because then you have a stationary focus.**

Trust Clint to know how to do this right. We make it off the ride with my dignity still intact, although that may be mostly due to the fact that Clint called me out of my place before I had a chance to make myself breakfast.

The thought of food reminds me that I'm starving, and I say as much to Clint. He takes me past two corn dog stands before finding one that meets his approval, and I have to admit that the ones we finally get are amazing. Much better than the packaged ones I used to eat sometimes in college, these have real cornmeal coating and I scarf the whole thing down in about two minutes. Clint eats his more slowly, but we're still both done when he finds a knife-thrower show that we stand in the back of the crowd to watch. We miss some of the tricks but it's better than Clint possibly being recognized by the performer-he has no idea if any of these acts might have been trained by his old mentors and it's better safe than sorry.

 **Can you do that?** I ask when the show is over.

**You know I can, I showed you in training.**

**But the really cool ones like that over the shoulder throw.**

**Sure. I could teach you, too, if you'd stop giving up so easily.**

**I do not give up easily.**

**You do too.**

I decide it's a fight I've already lost, so I stop arguing, and then Clint taps my arm to get my attention.

**How'd you like to hold fire?**

**What?**

**I used to know the people who did the fire show at Carson's, there's a trick to it. Let me go talk to someone, I'll be right back.** He moves toward the crowd of people encircling a young African-American girl tossing flames from one palm to the other, juggling them effortlessly.

**Clint, they have training, I can't do that!**

**Trust me, it's safe. I've done it without burning myself, so trust me, it's idiot proof.**

I come up, struggling through the crowd because I'm still guarding my purse with a death grip, just in time to hear the girl say, "Sure, she can do it, Clint."

**You know her?**

**Yeah, she was just starting at Carson's when I left. This is Larissa. You're lucky, she doesn't let just anyone in on the tricks. But she'll do it for me.**

"Hi, nice to meet you Larissa. I'm Henley."

"Hello, Clint told me that you're a sign language interpreter, that's cool." She leads us both into the small tent behind her platform, and picks up a jar of bluish liquid gel. "Now, I'm not going to tell you how this is made-trade secret-but I will let you try using it." She takes my hand and squeezes a pool of the gel into my palm. I wince involuntarily, if something goes wrong I do not need another hand injury! My wrist is getting better, but burns will not be fun to sign with.

Larissa must be sensing my nervousness, because she gives me a reassuring smile. "Trust me, it won't hurt you unless you let it. Fire's like a spirited horse, you need to respect it but if you fear it you're in even more danger."

I chuckle nervously and then Larissa clicks a lighter and touches the flame to the liquid. A blue and orange tongue of fire shoots up and I almost drop it in shock. But when I realize that the fire isn't hurting me and the heat is barely even noticeable, I relax and begin to enjoy the moment.

The fire dances on the palm of my hand without burning me, and I can't contain my amazed laughter. I look up only when the fire burns out, and Clint is watching me with that odd expression he gets sometimes when I find wonder in things.

"That was amazing, thank you so much!" I say to Larissa.

"No problem, it's fun, isn't it? Just don't go sharing my secrets, 'cause I know how to set real fires," She threatens playfully as Clint and I walk out.

We don't go five more feet before Clint is pointing to the grease-stained sign over a little stand off to the side of the main walkway. "Funnel cakes, donuts, and candy apples" it reads in fading red letters.

I'm not usually a big fan of this kind of fried food. It can make me feel a little ill, since I don't eat it often, and it's also not my first choice with the way I have to work to maintain a healthy weight. Some girls can eat whatever they want and never gain a pound. I am not that girl.

But I have to admit, the baked sugary smell from the funnel cake seller is pretty enticing. So when Clint pulls me over to them and insists that we just have to get one or our trip to the circus won't be complete, I could no more refuse that than I could have refused if the request had come from the little kid with a backpack leash in front of us in line.

It's odd to see Clint back here in the same kind of place he grew up. I would have expected, with all the pain that Carson's put him through and the bad memories he must have, that he would want to stay as far as possible from anything that would remind him of that time, but that's not the way it is at all. He's been as enthusiastic about this entire day as any of the kids here.

We walk along, eating the funnel cake, which is surprisingly good. It is messy, though, and I have powdered sugar all over my hands and face. I feel Clint's hand brush my cheek and I think he's trying to get my attention, but when I look to see what he's going to sign, He rubs his thumb over the end of my nose and grins.

**You had sugar all over you.**

**Stop it, Clint, I can get it myself.**

**You're just lucky I didn't do what I used to with Brianna, when we got these. I'd kiss the sugar off her nose.**

**CLINT!**

**It was back at Carson's, long time ago. She was an aerialist, dated her for like five months.**

**Really?** I love how much more open Clint is with me now; ever since the near-disaster in Manila he's treated me with more honesty and respect. Like he's finally accepted that I'm not a deadweight on mission and I can be useful.

**Yes.**

**I didn't know you were involved with anyone before Bobbi. Wasn't in your file.**

**Relationships in the circus are kind of like the circus itself. They're amazing and flashy for a little while, and then they pack up and leave and there's only a few peanut shells and tent stake holes to show they ever existed at all. I dated at least three of the high-wire aerialist girls and a horse trick-rider. Boy, she was a wild one. That ended badly.**

It's funny how casually Clint talks about his ex-girlfriends around me, like it's a normal thing to have so many different people and so many short-lived relationships. It's also funny how little that bothers me. I mean, it's not like I have a straight and narrow relationship history either.

We pick up a twist of cotton candy as well- _oh man I am so going to have to run tomorrow-_ and continue down the midway. Clint can't resist trying his hand at several of the games, and I have to laugh at how easily he wins. I'm not laughing so hard when I'm the one who ends up carrying the colorful, cheap stuffed animals he wins.

I try a few of the games as well, but I'm not great with my aim throwing things and even the kids who are playing laugh at my lack of skill. I stuff my pride down in my purse next to the stuffed purple dolphin and laugh with them.

The sun's heat finally drives us under the canopy of a tent full of tables, where Clint and I finish off the messy, melting last strands of the cotton candy. I reach up to sign to him when I notice a wisp of the pink sugar stuck to the stubble along his upper lip.

He's been casually flirting with me all the time, so part of me says that what I feel like doing right now is just beating him at his own game. Like best friends do all the time, knowing it doesn't mean anything but pretending to flirt or get mad at the other person. I know that if I shrug off anything I do as joking around or finally getting into the spirit of making a few comebacks to Clint's goofy flirting, he'll accept the explanation and think nothing more of it.

Unfortunately, I know I'm just telling myself that to rationalize what I know is going to be a risky move. I'm not playing. For me, at least, the attraction is very real. But I have no way of knowing if it's all a game to Clint. And there's really only one way to find out.

I know I shouldn't do this, but somehow I can't bring myself to care. _I've played with fire already, and been lucky to not get burned. Just a different way of doing it. Oh, gosh, I'm so gonna regret this tomorrow._

So I kiss him.

The kiss tastes like cotton candy and salt and just plain Clint, and I can't stop. I know people are probably staring but I just don't care at all. For once in my life, I have absolutely no concern for what anyone thinks of me. The only person whose opinion I care about is Clint. And he seems to think I'm worth his time, because after the initial shock he begins to return my kiss with pleasure.

 **What was that for?** Clint signs as I pull back.

**You had cotton candy stuck to your lip. You said this was an effective way to remove sugary stuff.**

**You missed a spot.** I have no problem with the expected response to that.


	18. Chapter 18

_Okay, I officially regret yesterday._

Mostly I regret eating more than one deep-fried thing, because Clint and I barely got to the car before my stomach was roiling and when we got back I felt so terrible that Clint dropped me off at my apartment with an apology and I spent the rest of the evening curled up in a chair hoping my stomach wouldn't decide it had enough.

Maybe it's a good thing, I muse as I get up slowly, still nervous about moving too fast. It meant I avoided really awkward questions from Clint about whether I wanted to stay over at his apartment. Listening to his stories from the circus, I have no doubt that his expectations of a relationship definitely include some...physical...considerations, and I don't want things moving that fast. In my experience that causes things to burn out too fast. I don't want that with Clint.

But I really ought to go talk to him. Problem is, now that we may or may not be in a relationship, it's suddenly awkward again. Even though he's just one flight of stairs away, it seems too far.

_Come on, Henley, you can handle this. You faced down an angry mob boss and a government rogue scientist creep, and now you're acting like a ditzy high-school girl around her first crush. Come on, you're almost thirty, act like it!_

What is it about Clint that makes me go all teenage-goofy and completely un-professional around him? I have never been this way with any of the other guys I dated. Never lost that little wall of stiffness that I wear as consistently as my dark work suits. It bothers me a little, that I've started something that I may be forced to regret long-term.

It definitely isn't protocol, an interpreter/client relationship like this. But then again, when has this job, this life, ever followed the usual protocol?

I run my fingers through my hair, all the cleaning up I have energy for, climb the stairs and knock, timidly.

Lucky immediately begins barking, and I hear footsteps clump slowly down stairs and to the door. Clint opens it, looking bleary-eyed and drowsy.

"Wha…Oh, hi Henley."

I launch into it before I can reconsider and run for the stairway. "Clint, we gotta talk, okay? About yesterday?"

He looks confused for what I think might be a bit too long before I see the understanding catch up. _Maybe I am making it u-out to be something it's not. IF it was so unimportant to him he's already forgotten what happened..._ "Oh-kay. C'mon in, I gotta make some coffee or I'll be back asleep on my feet."

I follow him in and sit down on one of the bar stools next to the counter while Clint fills the coffeemaker. I sit and listen to the bubbling percolator sounds, unsure of what to say.

As it turns out, I don't have to say anything. Clint surprises me.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you upset. It just seemed like you wanted to go for it." He sounds like he might be wondering how that happened, and I bite back a smile at the thought of _what if we'd known this was going to happen the first day we met? Boy, I wonder what he thinks of how he treated me now. We're like that cliché fighting couple from those cheap rom-com flicks my roommate and I used to watch. Funny thing is, I didn't think that was a real thing, that that kind of relationship could work. Maybe it still won't. But I can try._

"You didn't make me upset Clint. I think if we both really want this, we should go for it. But the one thing I do not want is to be another story you tell, another empty circus lot. I'm not putting myself through another relationship like that." I can hear the words coming out of my mouth but I feel removed from them, and I cannot believe I just said those things to Clint. _Nice job, Henley, you're becoming as blunt in spoken English as it's normal to be when you use ASL. Great. Now he's gonna hate you._

Clint turns away and I think he's mad, until I see that the coffee's done and he's pouring us both a mug. He hands me a purple one with an "H" on it, and I drink the coffee gratefully, even though it scalds my tongue. I may have said too much.

"I get that," Clint says, and him talking shocks me so much that I choke on coffee. What is it with S.H.I.E.L.D. agents making me almost drown myself getting a drink?

"I know I've messed up a lot, before, and you got no reason to trust me. But I think we might have a chance."

"I think I can live with that. So long as we take it slow, take time to make sure it is what we think it is, I'm willing to take a chance." I want him to know that no matter how intense the mission gets, how badly we might want to do something crazy to deal with the stress, I am not into fast-moving, quick burnout relationships. No way is this escalating at all before I know if I can really, truly trust him. I really, really want this. This isn't Frank, where I was too young to think a relationship was anything more than hot dates and waking up at his place not really knowing what happened the night before. I think this time, it could be real. And I can't lose that.

I move from the chair to a seat on the counter so I can look Clint in the eyes. I'm leaning over maybe a little too far in toward him when the door flies open without so much as a knock and I jerk up so fast I hit Clint in the face with my hair. Bobbi Morse is standing in the door and looking almost as shocked as I feel, her voice trailing off in confusion.

"We have a mission…oh Clint, what did you do?"

This does look bad. I'm perched on the counter in my short shorts and raggedy tank top, with messy hair and Clint's coffee mug, and leaning in to kiss him, and now I'm also blushing. Like, hardcore look like I have a sunburn red. I hate that every time anything bothers me I turn into a tomato, and it's been the curse of my dating life since high school. _Wait, tomatoes are nightshades, right, so maybe it fits…oh my gosh what the heck is wrong with my brain get back to the issue at hand, Henley, now!_

"Bobs, it's not what it looks like. I swear. We didn't do anything." Clint runs a hand nervously through his messy hair and forgets he's got a cup of coffee in his other hand, and it slops out all over the floor and an insulted-looking Lucky.

"But you are dating or something." Bobbi frowns disappointedly at me, like a parent who's found out her daughter is dating the school's bad boy. "Don't try to lie to me, Henley, I know that look. Didn't listen to a thing I said, did you?"

"I'm not too good with spoken words, you know. Maybe you shoulda signed it." _Oh my gosh I must still be half asleep because why did that come out of my mouth?_

"It's too late now, you're developing his sense of humor. Why do I bother? Anyway, lovebirds, here's the info." Bobbi set a folder down on the counter. "Only brought one, didn't expect you both here. But I guess you can share."

I flip open the folder and scan the initial overview of the mission with a frown, then raise my hand just because I know it's going to annoy the heck out of Bobbi. "I have a question, where the heck is Kirgawe?"

Clint answers before Bobbi can. "It's a newly formed African nation, broken off of Somalia. Its existence isn't officially recognized by most countries, but it has a valuable mining field that S.H.I.E.L.D. utilizes to extract an ore very similar to Vibranium. It's in our best interests to keep the country independent, since Somalia denies us access to the mine."

"And they're trying to take the country back by assassinating the new president of Kirgawe?" I hand him the file.

"Yes, we picked up some chatter on underground web sites, and it's wise to follow up on it. That's a volatile area, and we have minimal personnel on the ground to corroborate rumors. That's why we're going in to make sure."

Something suddenly clicks to me, something I should have noticed a long time ago but missed in the general chaos of Bobbi's arrival. "Wait. We? You're on this op?"

"Unfortunately, yes. I hope I won't have to watch you two being all mushy cute-couple on me. I might accidentally shoot one of you." Bobbi gives the two of us a sarcastic grin. "You're just lucky it's me and not Jess."

"Aw, Spider-girl knows we aren't a thing anymore." Clint downs the last of his coffee and turns to me. "Go get your gear, Henley. And keep it under control out there." He slaps my arm playfully.

"Oh, I'm not the one we have to worry about, Barton."

"Oh my gosh I think I just threw up a little in my mouth," Bobbi grumbles. "Sickening."

"You never hated it when I did it with you." Clint grins at her in a way that almost seems flirtatious despite their obviously tense relationship.

"That's because I didn't know it's the way you act with every girl you meet. Henley, I'm telling you, don't fall for it. He's a wild ride, but the kind you're sorry you ever got on when it's over. And it's over fast." Bobbi spins on her heel and opens the door. "I'll see you two on the tarmac at nine tomorrow."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Henley's comment about ASL being direct is very much the natural way of the language, people are described and identified by noticeable physical features, and there are very few euphemisms used. ASL also gives generous praise but honest criticism, which is a feature that can put off some learners who are used to the less direct correction usually given with spoken English.


	19. Chapter 19

I'm just surprised I haven't been killed yet.

I'm currently sharing a car with two people who can't stop giving each other the evil eye, and I don't dare say a thing because I've been relegated to the backseat like a child. It isn't helping that Bobbi seems to have gone to the James Bond school of driving because every five minutes I'm sliding across the seat as far as my belt will let me move, or thinking we'll never make it through that yellow light in time.

It's a relief to be out of the car and on the runway next to the jet that's going to take us to Kirgawe. The pilot climbs out to meet us, and I see with some surprise, that it's May. She never told me she could fly a plane, and now I wish I'd known that in training because I would certainly have asked her to teach me. Not that she would have agreed, but hey, it's worth taking the chance, right?

May pushes down her sunglasses to look at me, and I remember it's the first time I've worn my new gear on a mission.

"Nice. I'd have asked for a back holster for my backup gun, but that's just me."

"I did get my knives worked in," I tell her and reach for the two side sheathes and draw my knives with what is meant to be a dramatic secret agent flair. It might have worked if I didn't hit Clint in the stomach with an elbow and drop my knife from the surprise.

Bobbi rolls her eyes at me, sheathes her own batons in her black-and-grey tactical uniform, and gives May a nod as she enters the plane. The two seem to have a bit of history, because they never taught me Spy 101 together and they don't talk much when they have to be in the same room. This is gonna be a fun plane ride.

It actually turns out a bit better than I expected. After takeoff, we level out and I feel comfortable moving around the cabin a little. Bobbi joins me at one of the small windows, where I'm watching the Atlantic stream by in between spurts of cloud cover.

"It wouldn't do any good to tell you you're making a mistake, so I won't. I just don't want you to get mixed up in something like this without knowing I did what I could to help." She doesn't sound angry at all, and I rethink my first instinct to run like crazy in the other direction.

"If he gives you grief, tell me. I'll make him regret it." I have no doubt she'd do that with pleasure. "But if it works, you gotta tell me how you did it. Because frankly I don't think anyone can keep Clint Barton in a steady relationship." She leaves, and I'm left staring out the window with a swirling feeling in my stomach that has nothing to do with the fast-moving view out the window.

We land in a greying dusk at a small strip of dirt and gravel in the desert. It looks like the middle of nowhere, but I know that just over a few small rises lies Kirgawe's capital city. I could see the lights as May banked for her landing.

We take the jeep sitting next to the runway, a clunking, dusty rattletrap, into town and find our hotel with few problems. It's actually a fairly modern-looking establishment, like better than half of the city itself. The streets teem with both new-model cars and bellowing cattle and donkeys heaving carts, and men in business suits brush shoulders with women in colorful wraparound dresses and sandals. Barefoot children with shirts that bear logos of almost any imaginable sport or brand chase each other and the mangy stray dogs, in front of restaurants with shining glass windows and rich wood doors.

The city is a confusing mix of the modern and the traditional, of opulence and poverty, of rural and urban. The mining industry is responsible for the traces of wealth that over the city, and I can see why the country is so unwilling to lose its independence; which would also remove its greatest source of income.

We don't spend much time at our hotel before leaving to make our first inroads with government personnel. The president is holding a banquet to celebrate his re-election, and we need to get close to one of his advisors, a French mining magnate, Jean Gisson.

There's no direct evidence to link Gisson to the assassination rumors, but his mining company has been angling for a larger stake, which President Jawali has consistently refused to give. It's possible that Gisson is playing both sides of the argument and has managed or is close to arranging a deal with the Somalian government on the mining rights.

If that's true, a takeover would definitely be in his favor. I really don't have much of a concern over political power struggles, but when they involve plans to kill a man with three children and a wife, I have no more patience for them.

Our covers are fairly simple this time. As a matter of fact, Clint and I barely even _have_ files on cover IDs. We're more present as backup for Bobbi, who is running point on this mission. Apparently, she fits Gisson's type in a woman, and she's supposed to get close enough to find out if he's behind any kind of plot. If things get hairy, Clint and I have a cover story of being business partners in town to meet with her, but as of right now, only one of us is planning on entering that party-Brenda Jaye, a Wall Street mogul's daughter with a shrewd head for business and a bit of a reputation for ill-advised romance.

Which leaves Clint and me on the roof of a nearby apartment building with several roosting chickens, a line of laundry that keeps obscuring our view, and a teenagers' party going on in the room directly below us.

Bobbi steps out of her car and tosses the keys to the valet, then greets the doorman with a blinding smile before he checks her off the guest list and ushers her in.

I turn to Clint with a small frown. "She was on that list already, didn't even have to fake her way. What if the real Brenda shows up?"

"The real Brenda is currently on an island in the Pacific with limited communications access and one of our own undercover agents. He drew the short straw," Clint is grinning, though. "Bobbi said he just wouldn't stop griping about spending five days with a beautiful woman and no office calls."

I turn my attention back to Bobbi, who has moved into view past a faded green dishtowel flapping in the night breeze. She's already found Gisson, it appears, and is engaging him in some sort of discussion next to a table of drinks.

Bobbi is wearing a stylishly low-cut red dress and I can see that she's gone into mission mode. Her normal wry smile has become a larger fake crowd-pleasing one, and her graceful movements have a seductive edge.

It works like a charm because in less than half an hour Gisson is following Bobbi out the doors to discuss a "business proposition" at her hotel room. Clint and I are already moving, back across the roofs to the hotel.

Bobbi arrives less than five minutes after we settle into position on the balcony of her room. Well, technically the room she and I will be sharing this evening. So preferably this ends with a minimum of blood, not sure how I feel about sleeping in the same room with dead people.

Fortunately, Clint and I never have to intervene. Bobbi no sooner gets Gisson into the room before she plunges a needle into his thigh, and in ten minutes he's given her all the information she needs, including the passcodes to his underground web accounts where he's coordinating hired mercenaries for an attack at the re-inauguration tomorrow afternoon.

After Bobbi sends a rather bleary and confused Gisson, who thanks to the S.H.I.E.L.D. developed serum will remember nothing but going home due to a terrible headache, off in a taxi, Clint and I climb through the window. Clint goes into his side of the suite almost immediately, probably hoping to shower off the smell of whatever the partying teens under our perch were smoking, and I change out of my mission gear into a t-shirt and shorts while Bobbi dismantles her hairpiece, which holds a mini-recorder that has captured Gisson's confessions perfectly.

Bobbi changes out of her dress into a pair of sweatpants and a grey S.H.I.E.L.D. t-shirt and sits down at the room's desk with her computer. Accessing Gisson's underground network is short work for her, and before the hour is up she's mapped out the plan for tomorrow's assassination as well as what we can do to prevent it. She also has a sheet with 'contingency b, c, d," and so on it, I'm slightly nervous about the one involving the use of camels.

It's well past midnight when Bobbi stands up, yawning, and moves toward the bed. I'm dead on my feet as well, but I have to ask her something. I can't get the little kiss she gave Gisson, right before stabbing him with the needle, out of my head.

"Does it ever bother you, to have to do things like that with people you know are crooks?"

"Not anymore. Right then I wasn't even Bobbi Morse, just Brenda Jaye. And she's okay with that kind of meaningless romantic playing."

"It's just so different to hear about it in training, and then to see it happening. Doesn't doing that make you start to feel wrong? Like you're too many different people to know who you really are anymore?"

"It does. But that's the price you pay for making the world a safer place for people who will never know they were at risk. It's the job, Henley, and if you can't do what needs to be done, put everything you are and everything you care for aside to do it, you are in the wrong business. That's why Clint and I couldn't work. We were more dedicated to the job than to each other. You have to be."

"But I'm not an agent, I'm an interpreter."

Bobbi's face turns to the cold, hard, serious mask that makes me remember we are not really friends. "IF you still think that, Henley, you're sadly mistaken. The day you took that file you became an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., with all the responsibility, and the duties, that come with it. If you can't learn to think like an agent, you will get killed out there."I realize that I've just seriously insulted Bobbi, but I'm too amped up and angry to care so I reach over and flick off the light.

It's odd, the look on her face as the light goes out. It's not someone who's been hurt by a friend, or even someone who is angry. It's someone who has been there before. Someone who's looking at her own past, inside me.


	20. Chapter 20

My inability to sleep tonight is not just my self-criticism over the way I acted with Bobbi. I'm also thinking about what she said about being a different person.

Could Clint be playing me for some end only he can see? Is this all an elaborate act? He seems sincere, but then again, so did Bobbi up until the second she jammed a syringe in Gisson's leg.

It's all moving too fast for me, and my stomach starts doing flips and effectively trapping me awake with my dismal thoughts. _I know that Clint and I have worked together for a while, but do we really have enough to hold a relationship? Is it just the high coming off of surviving Manila and how close we've been since I moved into his building? Has he done this kind of act with every girl he dates? Maybe he can't help it, but I know how he seems to flirt with everyone so casually, what right do I have to think I'm different, just because he said he thinks we could work? When he gets what he wants will I just be another memory, or another cold-shoulder co-worker like Bobbi seems to be?_

All this seems like something I should be asking Bobbi, or that Jess, whoever she is, that Bobbi mentioned. But I've just royally screwed up with Agent Morse and I have to survive tomorrow before I can worry about any sort of future.

It still hangs over me as we get up and dress in silence for the inauguration today. I slip my comms in my ear, and adjust them as Bobbi does the same.

"Mockingbird to Nightshade, com check."

I can feel the tenseness in Bobbi's voice and I know she hasn't forgotten the words exchanged last night. I want to apologize, but now is not the time. We step out of the room at the same time as Clint comes from his side.

I'm still thinking about my internal monologue from last night, and beginning to have that awful regretful feeling that I hate when I start to rethink something I had decided was a good idea. Like walking into an armed hostage situation without a bullet-proof vest as a show of trust. Like tailing Frank to see where he went on Friday nights and seeing that seedy bar. Like getting involved with my client-with Clint.

So when Clint greets me with a cheerful grin and a hand on my waist that's too low for my liking, I give him a death glare to rival Nat's. "Clint, we have a mission. Not the time."

He backs off, with some of the same hurt I saw in Bobbi's eyes last night, and I want to throw myself under a bus. Or an ox-cart, or whatever vehicle happens to be coming down the street currently.

If there's one talent I have, it's a talent for making relationships go belly-up, fast. I'm great at reading emotions and connecting with people when there are lives at stake and I have four-hundred percent too much adrenaline, but get me in a situation where there has to be commitment and long term success and for some reason I seem to be able to screw it up amazingly.

Maybe Clint isn't the one I should be worried about here. Maybe it's me, the whole time, who will cause this thing to become a level-seven classified disaster.

He and I set off in silence across the roofs while Bobbi places the case containing her disassembled sniper rifle in the back of her car and drives away.

There's too much security for us to get more than half a black from the inauguration site, especially since this is a very upscale neighborhood for this city. People sneaking across the roofs would definitely be noticed.

I can see Bobbi in the crowd, in her black dress, but she's little more than a dot in the mass of people. I don't know how Clint's going to be her backup; hopefully he can see much better than I can.

I watch Bobbi get in position, hidden behind a small retaining wall, and assemble her rifle, waiting for the hired mercenary killer to show up. Several speakers take the makeshift stage, praising President Jawali's many accomplishments in his previous term and his prospects for the future of Kirgawe. It's like any other political meeting, and I'm getting insanely bored. My left leg is falling asleep from the awkward position I'm in, and I'm just debating whether to take the risk of standing up and shaking life back into it when everything hits the fan.

There's a loud, shrill sound that makes my ears hurt, magnified by the comms, and then every window in the vicinity shatters. It's instant panic, people screaming and running everywhere. I lose sight of Bobbi and try to get her on the comms, but there's only static. Must have been an EMP. Then I feel Clint tapping my arm.

**That thing conked my aids. Okay, Henley, time to work for a living.**

**Got it.** I settle back down and scan the crowd again for Bobbi.

I don't find her. But I do see that President Jawali is still standing and trying to calm the crowds, even though without the sound system no one can hear him over the crowd. Then there's a red spray from the man's shoulder as he falls back, before I hear the crack of the shot. A fan of broken plaster from the wall behind him sprays out, and then I hear the second report of a gun, father off.

The president's guards have surrounded him and are protecting him now. I follow the trajectories of the bullets with my eyes, and realize Clint's done the same when he looses an arrow in the direction of the shot that hit the wall. A man I didn't see before, in tan clothes and a turban hat that can't quite disguise his pale skin, falls, clutching his arm.

The other shot appeared to come from the opposite direction, and I scan that way to see Bobbi slip out from behind the wall and blend with the panicked crowd, rifle now gone.

 **Did Bobbi just shoot the president of Kirgawe?** I sign sharply to Clint, having trouble grasping this.

**Not fatally.**

**Does this happen a lot?**

**Kinda.**

**It wasn't even one of the plans on her contingency list.**

**Oh, she never actually uses those lists, those are for completely ridiculous ideas that she'd never actually go for.**

**That explains the camels, then.**

**Camels?**

I don't have time to explain that one, because someone has done the same thing Clint and I were doing. They followed his arrow shot to the source, and I can see three men scrambling across the roofs toward us. We run, and I don't have time to worry about how wide the gaps are we're jumping, the only sound my breath and my heart pounding.

We drop off an edge onto a fire escape, wasting a few precious seconds getting to the ground where we stand a better chance of disappearing into crowds. Unfortunately, we chose to drop down into an alley, and we're cut off from the street when one of our pursuers jumps down, nearly landing on me. I have only a moment to be grateful that they seem to be armed only with knives, probably easier to conceal in the crowd at the stage area, before all three of them are on us. My own knives are already drawn, and I face down the first of the men, who apparently thinks I'll be an easy target.

I learned early in training that the fancy knife fighting you see in movies isn't really going to work in a fight. The trick to fighting, any fighting, is to be able to fight hard with everything you have instantly, and there are no rules.

Also, I kept getting in trouble for stabbing the practice dummy. Stabbing isn't going to be a great way to take someone out fast unless you're lucky enough to get a vital organ, which is hard with a shorter knife. The real key to a fight like this is to use the knife long ways and slice through important muscles to paralyze an arm or a leg. Gruesome, yes. Effective, definitely.

My first attacker is on the ground incapacitated in about ten seconds, and the next is barely able to process what happened to his buddy before he goes down as well. I'm panting, and when I feel the warmth of blood on my hands I look down in semi-shocked horror at the red dripping down.

I've done a lot of crazy things on missions. I knocked out a mafia matriarch with a wine bottle, I took on a knife attacker with an arm brace, and I was the bait for crazed scientists. But I've never had blood on my hands.

I finally realize that despite how much I hate to admit it, Bobbi is right. I am an agent. My hands are no longer just my tools, they are deadly weapons. It feels wrong, somehow, to look at them stained red when only a few minutes ago I was using them to sign to Clint.

The enormity strikes me so badly I nearly throw up. This is what I have become. Instead of a lifesaver, I am a killer. I am no better than the people I have accused of heartless acts and cold-blooded kills. I am one of them. Because I chose Clint.

I have no more time to dwell on it when I hear a squeal of brakes on the main road, and angry yells from bystanders. I'm sure it's more pursuers, and I prepare for the inevitable, but then the window rolls down and there's a very familiar whistle. Bobbi glances out the window at the two of us. "Well, are you waiting for curbside service? Get in!" We yank the doors open and pile in, and she pulls out with a squeal of tires and a swirl of dust.

Bobbi has replaced her comm from the extras stored in the car, and she's already talking on it to May, who's supposed to be standing by with the plane.

"May, I really hope you're on time with that extraction."

"Relax, Mockingbird, I'm here."

The rest of the drive is tense but uneventful and we squeal onto the landing strip next to the Quinjet just as May drops the boarding ramp. Once we're inside and sitting down, she fires up the engines and the Quinjet begins its sweeping turn to gather speed.

No matter how many times I've done this, takeoff always makes me queasy. So when there's a sudden swerve, I yelp and my stomach flops menacingly.

"Damn it, we have company," May growls over the intercom. "Hang on, it's gonna get bumpy." We're starting to lift, but now I can hear the crackle of gunfire and the ping as bullets hit the jet. Then there's an awful roar just as we go airborne, another sickening lurch, and then a halting, lopsided flight.

Bobbi turns on her comm again. "May, status report."

"One engine hit, still functioning but at 38% and dropping. In seven minutes I'm going to lose her altogether."

"Just get us as far away as you can and put her down."

"Already working on it. We're gonna hit the mountains be then, should make us harder to track." May's voice is clipped and then all is silence except the odd whining whirr of the crippled engine.

It seems like five hours rather than five minutes before May announces that she's trying for a controlled descent in a valley. We circle down until there's a sudden jolt that shakes us all. I irrationally believe it's enemy fire again, but then May alerts us, tersely, that she's caught a crosswind and it's sending us off course.

"Hold on." May's voice is what passes for her as nervous, which is really just about a shade more tense than her normal voice. In the middle of the panic I have the time to wonder what it is about these agents and their annoyingly consistent ability to lock down emotions. Then there's the rending screech of metal on stone, a terrible crashing sound, and the world goes black.


	21. Chapter 21

I wake up to a strange hissing sound, a brutal headache, and the feeling that I'm trapped. As a matter of fact, I really can't move; I'm tangled up in some sort of webbing and half-dazed, I decide that a giant spider has caught me and I'm about to be dinner.

Panicked, I start thrashing around, which causes a sharp pain to shoot through my hip and side. And then I become dimly aware of where I am, the grey metal hull of the Quinjet, now scored and dented from impact, and the heavy cargo netting that must have torn loose and tangled around me when we hit.

"Henley? You okay?" Bobbi's pale face, streaked with blood from a cut above her eyebrow, appears in my still quite fuzzy field of vision.

"Think so. My left side hurts and my head's killing me, though."

"Let's get you out of this and then we can get a better idea of how bad it is." Bobbi is already working on the straps with her knife held awkwardly in her left hand. Only then do I notice the odd bend in the right wrist she's holding close to her chest.

"Broken arm?" I ask, although my voice sounds odd to my own ears, breathy and strange, and it's starting to hurt both my head and my chest to speak.

"Yeah." Bobbi shrugs and then winces. "And I think my shoulder's dislocated. I got smashed into the wall pretty hard."

"How's Clint?" I realize I haven't seen him yet.

"Outside with May. He managed to get knocked out by his own quiver, and he still hasn't come around. And May got her leg pinned under the dash, but she got herself out, although she broke her lower leg in two places to do it. She kept insisting she could come help me but really, she can't stand up without almost collapsing."

By this point, my right arm is free and I'm able to get to one of my knives to speed up the process. When I'm finally able to move my legs freely, I attempt to stand and the resulting avalanche of pain forces me back down with a suppressed scream.

Bobbi's forehead tightens, but that's the only indication of her worry. "Ok, Plan B. I'm going to carry you out." She lifts me like I weigh no more than a rag doll and _she has to be running on pure adrenaline because there is no way otherwise that someone her size could lift me_ and I notice a sharp grimace of pain on her face before she shifts me into an awkward version of a fireman carry that doesn't stress her bad arm so much.

She nearly bangs my head on a fallen support strut and I have scratches all up and down my back and arms from where we bumped into things, but finally we tumble, totally exhausted, to the ground several yards away.

I lie on my back, trying to catch my breath and thinking it's oddly warm for how cloudy and breezy it is up here in the mountains. I can hear my own breaths, and maybe Bobbi's too, since she's half-sitting, half-lying next to me, harsh and wheezing, and some odd sound below that that seems to be coming not from me but from something else.

As the deep rushing growl steadily grows, I'm drifting, thinking. I'm not entirely sure how much time passes before I feel Bobbi shaking me, saying, "We've rested long enough, now we have to go."

"Don' wanna move," I mutter, only half-awake, but there isn't much of a choice because Bobbi has me up again, and suddenly I realize why and I'm shocked back to full awareness when the plane explodes in a massive fireball behind us.

I muster up the strength to get a few words out, even though it feels like my chest is full of gravel. "That was close." _So that's what the hissing sound was. Fuel, ready to flare up._ "Why didn't you say we were three seconds from getting turned into charcoal?"

"I didn't think we needed to add to the stress level of the situation. You were already tense, and oddly enough, most people become paralyzed and basically useless when told they are very likely going to die."

I can't really argue with Bobbi's logic. She's right; if I had known about the imminent danger of fire, I would have been hurried and panicky, and probably not able to help cut myself out as quickly. I want to be mad at her but I just can't, and I realize that any residual anger I had from yesterday's argument is pretty much gone.

It's not like I can blame her much anymore. Strange how much has changed since just twenty-four hours ago. I'm no longer the innocent in all this. I can't pretend that the only thing I will ever have to do in the field is be Clint's ears and be the interpreter. I thought I could do this job without all the baggage that comes with it. I thought if I was the shadow I wouldn't have to be a part of the bad things that happen. That I'd never need to do anything that will keep me awake at night.

But now I have blood on my hands too. And a very real feeling that I have crossed a line. I'm no longer the shadow, the invisible one, the helper, the deadweight. I'm an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. I'm Nightshade now, deadly and dangerous. I'm everything I didn't want to be, and it's strange how little I really care. I've become proud of who I am now, and what I can do. And now I don't ever want to walk away.

The growing agony in my side is a dire reminded that I might not get the choice on whether I want to walk away from this life. This mission could be my last. Or if not now, then the next time. That was another thing I thought being the shadow would protect me from. Not anymore.

May looks up from attempting to splint her leg with the sleeves of her shirt and some sticks as we approach. "Well, that's wonderful. Thing probably blew before our signal got triangulated. I had it on long enough that they'll have a general area, but they'll probably be running search patterns for hours to find us."

Bobbi doesn't say as much out loud, but I can hear her thoughts in her voice. All she says is, "Well, it can't be helped now," but I know she's thinking, _some of us don't have those hours to spare._

Bobbi lays me on the gravely outcropping next to Clint, who is unconscious but breathing steadily. That's a relief, and I reach over, in spite of the protests from my body, and twine my fingers into his. It's become normal to me to reach for his hand when I know he can't hear, a sign that I'm still here, that someone is holding onto him and never willing to let go.

Bobbi sits down next to us, and seems to relax instantly. I wonder what other injuries she's hiding, realizing for the first time how tense she's been holding herself while on her feet.

"Thanks for pulling me out of there. I'm sorry I yelled at you last night." I figure I ought to say this now because I'm getting a warm, fuzzy feeling that cannot be a good thing, and my uniform feels oddly tight on my left leg. _Internal bleeding, maybe?_ I'm fairly sure I'll pass out any minute now. _Aren't you supposed to kiss and make up on your deathbed? Wait, what? Geez, I must be losing more blood than I think 'cause I am NOT kissing Bobbi. Just apologizing. Which is good, right?_

"Everyone has one of those moments where they start to realize that what they signed on for and what they got are two very different things. Just be grateful yours was a hotel room with a trained assassin for a roommate, and not a torture chamber in Myanmar full of deadly scorpions." Bobbi speaks lightly, but I can tell she's remembering what it was like to come to grips with the realities of life in her-our-line of work.

"So, we're still friends?"

"Henley, if you think you could drive me off with that little flash in the pan, you have no idea. Trust me, the only reason I stayed married to Clint as long as I did was because I learned to let it just roll off me. You'd have to do a lot worse than tell me the truth to make me hate you."

I guess I should have known that, seeing as Clint and Bobbi really do manage to stay friends even with the amount of insults and arguments they throw back and forth. That's the last coherent thought I remember before everything starts to wobble and I'm drifting somewhere between reality and dreams.

I'm tugged back to harsh awareness by a movement of the hand in my grasp. Clint is beginning to wake up. He stirs, and then attempts to roll onto his side. He stops with a flinch and a quiet yelp.

"Hold still, you've got a piece of metal in your side," Bobbi says with the dispassionate voice of a doctor speaking to a patient. For the first time, I notice the jagged silver spike that's stabbed through Clint's uniform. Some part of the torn metal from the crash. I wonder why Bobbi didn't tell me about that injury. _Or did she and I was too out of it to notice?_ "Don't try and take it out or you'll bleed to death."

"Where's Henley? Did you find her?" Clint is ignoring Bobbi and still trying to sit up. When he sees the flaming plane he goes paler than even the pain is making him.

 **It's okay, I'm here.** I know he can't hear, so I sign as best I can into his hand. He glances my way as if he's only just noticed that I'm holding onto him. He settles a bit, then notices how still I'm lying.

**How bad?**

**Not sure. Can't really feel anything much anymore. I'm guessing that is not the good sign it seems like it should be.**

**It's not. "** Bobs," Clint asks, turning to her, "How long out do you think they are?"

"They had the longest time of stationary signal May could give them, and they had our general flight plan. Three, maybe four hours if they send someone in out of the Kenya base."

"Aw, plane," Clint mutters, lying back with a small groan when the movement shifts his injury. I'm exhausted too, and despite Bobbi's repeated attempts to keep we awake by poking me with sticks and trying to talk to me, I drift into the darkness again, floating through oblivion.

From all the accounts I've heard, people with serious injuries like mine and drifting into unconsciousness are supposed to have these flashbacks or amazing spiritual epiphanies. Guess I should have learned from the near-drowning incident; those kind of things just don't happen to me.

Instead, I float around in velvety blackness for a while before waking up to a sharp pain that is so sudden I scream shortly before biting it off in a small whimper. For a moment, even with my eyes open, all I can see is blackness and I think, _this is it, the end,_ and then I realize night has fallen.

May is sitting sleeplessly with her back against the rock wall where the Quinjet landed, watching the sky and poking at a small signal fire she must have managed to kindle from the still-smoking wreckage. Bobbi sits next to her, between May and Clint, sound asleep.

The night air this high up in the mountains, and the side of my body that's further from the still-smoldering Quinjet is freezing. That might also be because I'm pretty sure I'm dying, but I'm trying hard not to think about that little detail.

I'm huddled as close to Clint as I can be without injuring either of us further. He's really warm and I know I should be worried because that probably means that he's running a fever from his wound, but really right now I'm just too grateful for the comforting warmth to worry too much about its reasons.

He stirs a little and half wakes up when I move the arm I really can't feel and accidentally bump against the shard of metal that's still impaling him.

"Hen? You awake?" he mutters hoarsely.

 **Sorry. Go back to sleep.** It hurts too much to form proper words with my hands, so I stop signing. Every breath is stabbing my lungs like one of my knives.

"Can't. We can't sleep, Hen." Sounding more agitated, Clint struggles to haul himself upright. "If we do we won' wake up again. Lucky you woke up 'en you did."

"Huh?" He must be able to see well enough to read my lips because he answers.

"Trus' me, I been here, done this. Don' go back t' sleep, no matter 'ow much 'oo wan' 'oo." Now he's slurring too, or is it just my hearing going all wonky? Does that a lot now, since I woke up. Nothing seems real, everything is moving too slowly. My hands don't feel like they're attached to me as I struggle to put one of mine in Clint's.

"'s wha' Buck said, af'er Bar-Ba'ney…and D'quesne…w's rainin', jus' wanted itta sto' 'urtin. But he said, no sleepin'." Clint reaches down, even though the taut lines on his face and the small whimper of pain betray how much effort it is, and pulls me into his lap. "Jus' stay with me 'til they come f'r us, 'k?"

It hurts, but somehow I know that's good because the pain is keeping me grounded. Even more, though, it's Clint keeping me here, keeping his fingers moving as he holds my hand, fingerspelling nonsense that sometimes almost makes me laugh, like the time he tells me the cat is eating a hamburger in the chimney.

But no matter how hard I try, I can't stop the darkness from stealing in. Even as I notice the first tinges of grey and rose on the horizon, over the mountains, my own sight is narrowing and fading away. Clint must be able to tell I'm giving up, because he begins talking to me again, even though it's obviously a struggle.

"D' I 'ver tell 'oo wha' happen'd in Budapest wi' Nat?" I shake my head slightly.

"W's funny. We were there t' find a mole fr'm S.H.I.E.L.D. 'n it was spos' be simple…" He trails off as the early morning sounds of birds and insects are broken by a low droning. "Hen, the plane's com'n. Th're com'n f'r us."

"C'n I go t' sleep now?" He only said I had to wait for the plane.

"Cm'on, Henley, 'ust a little 'onger." I can hear the roar of the search plane coming in now full volume, echoing off the mountain, but I'm too tired to care. _Just gonna close my eyes now…_


	22. Chapter 22

The darkness is peaceful, and I want to stay. No schedules, no pain, no stupidly complicated relationships. Just silence.

_Is this what it's like to be deaf? Well, no, probably more like deaf and blind. It's so calm._

Then a flicker disturbs me. Light, sound, someone's hand being pulled out of mine, though not without a struggle. That jars me, and I float to the edge of the blackness, feeling the wrongness of the separation. Whoever it is, we can't get split up. We can't.

_Wait, I know who it is. It's Clint. We can't let go of each other or we can't communicate. I need to keep hanging onto his hand._

That realization propels me just over the border into the world of light and sound and pain. My fingers twitch, forming Clint's name, over and over, a silent plea to have him come back to me.

"Look!...Moving…still a chance…get her in there, stat!...losing…too long…take a chance….nothing to lose." The words are meaningless. Swirling around in a chaos of senseless sound. Until a hand slides into mine, a hand shaking with pain and maybe fear too, a hand covered in blood and rough with an I.V. pressed into the skin, but familiar.

 **Stay. Stay. Stay.** The words spelled over and over again into my palm are an anchor. Until the largest wave of darkness comes and I'm swept back into oblivion.

My dreams are disjointed in the dark, swirls of color and light, familiar faces and faceless shapes, home, college dorms, friends, family, distant bright circus tents, a boy in a purple tunic with a bow-Clint, that's his name, yes, flying, falling, fire and dark… but the one constant is that hand in mine. When it disappears, all the light goes too. And the darkness is all-consuming.

"Beep. Beep. Beep."

I blink, feeling like there's a fifty-pound weight on each of my eyes, and gravel in my throat. When I finally get up the strength to actually open my eyes for longer than three seconds, the greeny-white ceiling of a sterile room swirls into focus. The annoying beeps are coming from a rather disturbingly large array of machines around me, and the reason my hand feels so warm is that Clint is sitting next to me in a chair, with his own I.V. and ridiculous-looking hospital gown, holding my hand.

"Henley? You awake?"

"Uh huh." I try to say, because it's all I feel capable of articulating, but even that comes out as a strangled gurgle around the breathing tube stuck down my throat. After a moment of raw panic at the feeling of being choked, I rationalize and switch to halting, painful signing.

**What happened?**

**You were out for a week and a half. You passed out right before our evac came, and they said you crashed three times on the way to medical. You had massive internal bleeding, a collapsed and punctured lung, and several shattered ribs, and rather ironically you had some lacerations from your own knives because they broke on impact and cut through your uniform. But you were in a coma until yesterday. Head injury side effects. Also, your hip was dislocated, but that's not really life-threatening.**

I wish he hadn't told me that because now I'm conscious of the dull, throbbing ache that radiates through my entire leg and halfway up my side.

**Darn it, Clint, you had to make me think about it; that hip hurts more than any of the rest.**

**It won't when you have to go to Phys. Therapy.**

**Don't talk about it.** My hand is getting tired. **You have to go too, you know. How's the side?**

**Better. Not currently a human pincushion.**

**That's good.** I'm starting to get exhausted, so I lay back and close my eyes. We're okay. We're all okay.

The next few times I wake up are fairly the same. Some days Clint is there, some days he's not, sometimes Bobbi or May or Kate show up to check on me. Phil is there more often than not, and one night I even wake up to the slightly terrifying sight of Nick Fury standing over in a corner, watching me with his one eye. It's a little disturbing, but I guess that's just what happens when you work for super-secret government agencies and end up in the hospital.

My parents and sister come from time to time, and the first day Phil has to be there because apparently the 'official' story is that this is the result of a car accident. I wonder what they told them when I disappeared in training all those weeks. Granted, I've never been that close since I moved out but they didn't seem freaked out when I talked to them later so there must have been some cover story. Just another thing I'm going to have to get used to.

One day the breathing tube is gone, and then there's the day when the doctor says I can start drinking liquids again. I'm so grateful I could almost cry because my throat feels like the Gobi desert from that breathing tube and the ice chips I could have were doing absolutely nothing.

Clint, who happens to be in the room, leaves and returns with a glass of water, as well as a slightly mischievous look that if I were a little more focused on anything but a cool drink I would know to be wary of. Instead, I practically snatch the cup from him, as best I can with still-healing ribs, and take a sip.

Something bumps against my lip and I wrinkle my brows in confusion and look down. There, floating on top of the water, is a single green grape. _He hasn't forgotten the dang blueberries, still._

Clint must have seen the second I realized the joke, because he's grinning like a madman. **Looks like grapes do float.**

I stifle a laugh that threatens to make my broken ribs explode in agony. _Yep, we're going to be just fine._


End file.
